Table of Contents
Personality Test
by Alyson Bannister..............................................................6
Out of Body
by Andre Farant...................................................................10
The Experiment to Determine the Innermost
Thoughts of Sam
by Anthony Squiers............................................................12
The Serpent Goddess
by Belinda Nicoll..................................................................15
Residual Cries
by Joe Amaral........................................................................19
Corporate Picnic
by Carla Pierce......................................................................20
Dad
by Chip O’Brien....................................................................23
Cardiology
by Christina Kapp................................................................26
Thomas Pynchon
by Christopher Tiefel.........................................................30
Cheap Religion
by Paula E. Kirman..............................................................33
A Thousand Butterflies
by Danica Green...................................................................34
A Way with Dogs
by Douglas Wynne..............................................................36
By the Time
by Ellen Wade Beals...........................................................40

2

The Shadow Back
by Erik Knutsen....................................................................43
Genesis
by Rod Peckman..................................................................45
The Cure
by Hall Jameson....................................................................46
A King of Infinite Space
by Jennifer Lyn Parsons....................................................49
The Pickpocket
by Jerome McFadden.........................................................52
She Sleeps with Ideas
by Joe Whalen.......................................................................55
Cover Up
by Rhonda Parrish..............................................................57
Beacon Theatre
by P. Keith Boran.................................................................59
Henpecked
by Kevin G. Bufton..............................................................62
Elegy
by Lauren C. Teffeau..........................................................65
Summer in Exile
by Lauren C. Teffeau..........................................................69
“The Palette” Revisited
by Robert Laughlin.............................................................72
Paint and Moisturizer
by Letisia Cruz......................................................................73
Welcome Back Jack
by Lynn Kennison...............................................................75
Cyborg Music
by Mary Cafferty..................................................................77
3

A Picture of Hope
by Mel Fawcett.....................................................................82
Vampire Poetics
by Joe Amaral........................................................................87
Not a Raging Bull
by Michael Davidson (herocious)................................88
Wake Me at Five
by Myra King.........................................................................90
The Dove Man
by Nancy Stohlman.............................................................94
First and Last Day Out of the Asylum
by Natalie McNabb..............................................................97
The Work of Crows
by Rod Peckman................................................................101
Severance
by Natalie McNabb...........................................................103
The Sleep Thief
by Sandra Crook................................................................107
Parmesan Dreams: An Allegory in which Umberto
Eco and the Rat King Converse about Various
Things & in which You Just Lost the Game
by Travis King....................................................................111

4

E
F
5

Personality Test
by
Alyson Bannister

She asks me another question that I’m not sure how to
answer. “I don’t know” seems like a cop out, and I don’t
like saying it. She wants something definitive and lucid,
but instead she gets a bunch of rambling that has to be
sorted through, like a trash bag when you know you’ve
thrown something important away.
I realize she has to think about what I’ve just said, but
does she have to stare at me while she’s doing it? She
examines me like a specimen under a microscope, and I
wonder if she sees the pulse in my neck throbbing faster.
The longer she stares in silence, the more anxious I feel.
Should I say something else? Should I just wait for the
next question?
“I feel like there’s something you aren’t telling me,”
she finally says. Her brows are knit together, and her
head is tilted to one side.
I open and close my mouth like a fish. I’m not sure
which something she means. There are a lot of things I’m
not telling her. There are things I’m not telling her that
I’m sure she wouldn’t deem relevant to the conversation,
but that I want to say anyway. And there are things I’m
not telling her because I can’t bear to part with them. I
can’t have them shoved under the microscope. I don’t
want them examined and pulled apart because I may
never be able to piece them back together. I’m afraid to
let go of the bits of myself that I think I understand,

6

because there’s always the possibility that she’ll prove
me wrong.
I shrug and give a half laugh. She scribbles something
on her notepad, and I wish I could snatch it from her—
not to read it, just to use it. To flip to a new page and jot
it all down, just like this. To show her that I’m not as
inarticulate as I appear to be…I don’t always ramble.
Maybe we can just email each other instead.
“Do you want to remain in your current position,” she
asks. “Is this what you want to do with your life?”
“No,” I say immediately, confidently. I smile because
it's the easiest question she’s asked me today.
“What do you want to do?”
“Write,” I think just as immediately. But I don’t say it.
Not yet. First I sigh and give her all the reasons I can’t do
what I want. I tell her I need to go to school and pick a
career that generates more money, as soon as possible,
so that I can support my kid. I tell her that it’s not a
question of what I want, but what needs to be done. I
have a choice to make, and because I find it depressing, I
haven’t yet made it.
I overload her with information again. She’s got so
many things to sift through that when I finally say, “I love
to write. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do.” It’s
weighed down, and I know it doesn’t have the effect it
should.
We touch on so many different things that I’m not
sure what today’s objective was supposed to be. And I
know it’s my fault. If I could just give her a straight
answer, maybe she could form a valid opinion. Maybe
she wouldn’t have parroted my own words back to me. “I
don’t know.”
As the session draws to a close, I realize that I’m
sweating. I can’t wait to get out of there, and maybe I’m
7

projecting, but I feel as though she can’t wait to get me
out of there too.
She says she’s going to give me a test to take home.
Seventy questions to help her determine what sort of
personality I have and in what occupation I’d fit best. I
just barely manage to keep from rolling my eyes. Is this
middle school? Is she going to tell me that I don’t work
well with others and should be in a profession where I
have limited contact with the general public? Will I fit
into the “artistic circle” on the career wheel?
“Try not to analyze the questions,” she says. “Go with
your gut instinct.”
I take the paper and note that it says “Temperament
Sorter—different drums and different drummers” across
the top, and I have the insane urge to laugh.
I’m wondering if I made the right decision, if she’s the
right therapist for me. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to tell
her all the things I’m afraid to. I’m wondering if this
questionnaire is going to help. I’m wondering if she’s
going to be able to sort through all the garbage I’ve given
her and pull out the bits that need to be cleaned up and
examined…or if that’s even her place. Maybe it’s mine. I
feel more confused than I did before we began, and that
worries me.
Then, in small letters off to the side, I see the words
“please understand me.” They’re nearly hidden under
the grey shadow of a hole-punch mark, from where the
test has been copied many times. I feel the sudden burn
of welling tears behind my eyes and the suppressed
laughter becomes a thick ball in my throat. The sudden
change in my demeanor embarrasses me and I fight it
back, hide it from her.
We schedule an appointment for the following
Thursday and I leave quickly, walking through the hallway
8

with my head down. Once inside the elevator I breathe a
little easier. I ride it up and up, out of the basement and
past the next few floors, my thumb smoothing over
those words that, as it turns out, arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t any easier to
read than they are to say aloud.

9

Out of Body
by
Andre Farant

All day, every day, she staggers through the
neighborhood. She stops at every sound, her eyes
searching, moving. Unlike more efficient hunters, her
sense of smell is terrible, just as it had been in life. I
wonder if she could starve, just fade away.
Her condition and appearance worsen by the day.
Her skin has turned the pasty pink of suet, and her teeth
have taken on the appearance of animal horn—tiny tusks
jutting out of her blackened gums. Oddly, her hair causes
me the greatest heartache. Her hair is greasy and lank,
falling out in clumps, leaving raw-looking bald patches
behind. I’d spent so much time and effort caring for that
hair.
She comes across an injured dog. The mutt limps
away as fast as it can, but she falls upon the animal with
a speed that bellies her necrotic state. She tears into the
dog’s throat with those tusk-like teeth. The dog yelps, it
whines, it kicks, and it lays still. She continues to feed,
blood running down her chin and onto her shirt. I turn
away, repulsed and embarrassed.
As she walks past Fred Hillary’s old place, I hear a
voice. She hears it too, and her rotting face swivels
toward Fred’s house. The front door is open and a man is
standing there.
“Nancy?”
Tom.
“Oh God, Nancy. It is you.”
10

He looks so happy, and for a moment I think he can
see me. But, with a fear that would have turned my
stomach if I’d still had one, I realize he is looking at her.
He is smiling. He takes a step forward. Can’t he see
she isn’t me? Can’t he see she is no longer me?
No, Tom! Get back in the house, I shout. But I have no
voice.
He jogs forward, and as the smile fades from his face,
she lunges at him. He screams and turns away, but he is
too slow. She grabs him by the shoulders, pulls him to
her chest, and buries those horn-teeth into his neck.
His scream is choked with blood. My scream is silent.
Tom collapses, and she kneels beside him.
An older man appears in the doorway. “Tom?” says
Fred Hillary. “Oh, Christ, no.” Fred shoulders his rifle and
fires. The bullet tears a hole the size of a lemon through
her head, and she collapses next to Tom.
Fred rushes to Tom’s side, but he is far too late.
I watch as my husband dies, lying next to her—next
to what remains of my body.
I look to the sky. I hope to see a bright light, to see
laughing relatives and smiling ancestors. I hope to see
Tom.

11

The Experiment to Determine the Innermost
Thoughts of Sam
by
Anthony Squiers

Sam was happy at the prospect. He was, in fact,
delighted. A happy equilibrium between his desire to
earn money over his summer holidays and his other
desire not to work seemed within hand.
On the bulletin board outside the elevator which
serviced his dormitory was posted a flyer reading,
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Human subjects wanted, $4000.â&#x20AC;?
The next day, Sam went to the clinic referenced in
the flyer. There, doctors and medical staff subjected him
to a series of simple tests. They measured his height and
weight. They checked his pulse and blood pressure. They
took a small sample of blood. Finally, they asked him
some personal health questions. Sam took care to
answer truthfully as best he could with the exception of
questions about drug use. Nevertheless, his answers
seemed to satisfy everyone in the clinic. The doctors
seemed happy.
Two weeks later, Sam received a letter by post which
informed him that he had been accepted for the study.
Again Sam was delighted.
The following week, Sam reported to the clinic. The
doctors explained that he was to take part in a trial study
of new neuro-technology which would allow the
articulation of dream thoughts into language. Sam was
intrigued. He remembered a lecture on science and

12

technology his freshman year and was amazed at the
possibilities these technologies offered.
The doctors successfully inserted a small thin lithium
wire containing electro-neuro receptors deep inside his
medulla oblongata. Then they attached the other end of
the wire to a pair of robotic hands that had been
designed specifically for the experiment.
When Sam awoke, he was happy the operation was a
success, as were the doctors. They asked Sam how he
felt, and he had no complaints. They also took the time
to acquaint Sam to his new appendages. If the receptors
work, the doctors told him, they would be able to type a
narrative of his dreams while he slept, and thus his
innermost thoughts and desires would be revealed.
That night, a computer was set up next to his hospital
bed, and the robotic hands placed onto the computerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
keyboard. However, the experiment failed to go as
expected. The hands did not type during the night, but
instead only made rude gestures to the dismay of the
doctors.
In morning, the doctors were busy at work looking for
reasons the experiment might have failed. Sam watched
as the doctors performed what looked to be highly
sophisticated calibrations on the robotic hands. Sam was
content. He ate, read, listened to music, and watched
television. That night everyone was ready for a second
run.
The doctors, initially excited to see the hands typing,
were soon disappointed. Instead of typing the subjectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
innermost thoughts, the hands had accessed the internet
and browsed for hardcore pornography.
The following morning, Sam again saw the doctors
busy at work making adjustments and alterations. But
the third trial proved as fruitless as the first two. After
13

initially getting the doctors’ hopes up that the hands
would type Sam’s innermost thoughts, the hands again
went to the internet browser and accessed pornography.
To further the doctors’ disappointment one hand left the
keyboard during a portion of the test and masturbated
Sam as he slept.
Concerned with the ethical implications of the sex act
on a possibly non-consenting subject, the clinic’s
administrators called an end to the experiment. The
doctors protested, arguing it was perfectly consensual,
but their protests went unnoticed. The doctors were very
disappointed that they were not able to uncover Sam’s
deepest thoughts and desires.
Sam on the other hand was delighted. Since he
fulfilled his obligation, he was paid in full and now had
the rest of the summer to do as he pleased.

14

The Serpent Goddess
by
Belinda Nicoll

I grew up in a culture of many facades. As the youngest
of a big family, I always felt like the laatlammetjie who
did not quite fit into the kraal. My father, a burly man
with piercing blue eyes and a booming voice, worked as a
rigger at a diamond mine in South Africa. Despite his
belief in racial segregation, he was known by his black
team as the White Lion—a symbol of courage he’d
earned for his fierce protection of their well-being in the
treacherous mines.
When I turned six, we moved to a farm outside the
village of Magaliesburg, an area surrounded by
mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and small wildlife. My
father’s long-awaited dream. My fantasy. That part of my
childhood was so removed from reality I might as well
have grown up in the Other World. I remember living by
the motto “run free, play hard, and imagine the
impossible.”
I’ll never forget my favorite playground at the river;
where the wind and clouds gathered round the poplars
to chitchat with the sparrows; where the sun and rain
teased the rabbits and porcupines from their burrows;
where my best friends, Charlot and Evelyn, and I playacted our worship of nature with the Serpent Goddess
(an imaginary snake charmer who acted as my spirit
guide); where I could be…just be, whatever I wanted to
be.

15

Charlot, Evelyn, and I grew up practically like sisters.
Their parents were our farm workers, and the family
lived in a stone and mud house at the foot of the koppie
behind our homestead. They were different from my
other friends—they didn’t question the existence of the
Serpent Goddess, and they were black. My father said
they were black because Africa was black and that black
people had been around much longer than we had.
We fitted well together. We always danced with the
Serpent Goddess at sunrise. During the day, we hid in
caves and dongas. At night, we stalked rabbits and
counted the stars in the heavens.
We played other games too. One incident stands out
in my mind, because it’s so telling of the sociopolitical
intricacies of that time.
The three of us were sitting under the willow at the
river, paging through my mother’s Huisgenoot magazine.
Charlot tapped on a page, cooing like a turtle dove,
“Ooh, look at the princess.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “That’s a bride; my sister
dressed like that when she got married.”
“I wanna be a bride,” she said.
“Me too,” Evelyn said. “Let’s make a wedding.”
“We’ll need music and food,” I said.
“We’ll need a dress,” Charlot said, still tapping the
picture.
A plan started germinating in my head. “Tomorrow.
Let’s play at your kaia. You get the food; I’ll get the dress.
We can make music with sticks and tins.”
I could hardly wait to get home from school the next
day, hoping they’d kept to the bargain. The biggest trick
was to dodge their mother, Liesbet, my surrogate mother
who was in charge of our household, since my mother
worked full-time managing a grocery store in support of
16

my father’s wish to live on a farm. I pretended to need
rest before starting my homework; instead, I closed my
bedroom door and sneaked out the window with my
stash.
“Ooh, it’s beautiful,” said Charlot. “It’s your sister’s
wedding dress, né?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s my mother’s lace curtains.”
Evelyn draped one of Liesbet’s hand-dyed African
batiks over a flat rock behind the kaia, balanced a jug of
Kool-Aid on it, opened a packet of Willards Chips, and
emptied it straight onto the ancient batik. Charlot yanked
the lace curtains from me.
“I go first,” she said.
“Aikôna! It’s my mother’s curtains. I go first.”
They wrapped the yards and yards of lace around me,
starting at my neck, then over my head, underneath my
arms, back around my shoulders, and around and around
my waist. They tied a knot at the back for the last yard or
so to form a train. Standing back to survey their
handiwork, their faces crunched up in dismay.
“Sies, man, you look like a spook.”
“What?”
“You’re too white: skin, hair, dress…sepoko…madimabe,” they muttered in Sotho.
They promptly unwrapped me, adamant not to invite
bad luck by having a wedding with a ghostly bride. Next
we wrapped Charlot; there was no doubt that the fine
lace on her ebony skin cut a stunning bridal image. We
spent a delirious afternoon mimicking a picture-book
wedding, drumming an empty Frisco coffee tin, singing,
dancing, sipping Kool-Aid, and munching Willards Chips. I
returned the lace curtains, torn and dusty, to the linen
cupboard before my mother got home.

17

“You weren’t in your room all the time, né?” Liesbet
said, but I knew her warning would go nowhere, as she
always kept my unorthodox comings and goings a secret.
That evening at the supper table, I decided to share
my thought of the day with the family. “When I get
married one day, I wanna be a black bride.”
My mother choked on a roast potato, my father
launched the saltshaker when he slammed his fist on the
table, and my brothers burst out laughing. “I don’t know
where we got this child,” my parents said.
“I want you to stop fooling around at the kaia,” said
my mother.
“Black’s black, and white’s white, and that’s that,”
said my father.
At that stage of my life, I was blissfully unaware of
apartheid. I belonged in black Africa, white roots and
all—that was my home, a magical playground, where
Charlot, Evelyn, and I continued to celebrate life
alongside the Serpent Goddess.
When my father died from a heart attack in 1991, I
chose to remember him as a complex soul with callused
mine-rigger hands who’d weep at the beauty of the stars.
I guess that’s what younger generations do—they
forgive the sins of the fathers, because they love their
families.

18

Residual Cries
by
Joe Amaral

A sinuous river
carves its own path
Water over even
the roughest stone
rubs it smooth, as
malleable time
slowly meanders
Weeping eyes bead
across aged flesh,
cruelly non-absorbent
Sidling off flushed cheeks
callously falling to oblivion
Salt streaks telling sad stories
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s said that teardrops
cleanse sin, purifying
our despoiled world
This may be true, but
I sense it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t nearly
enough water
to save us

19

Corporate Picnic
by
Carla Pierce

I am not a part-time catering assistant holding a set of
spring-loaded tongs, serving slow-smoked Texas BBQ
ribs, pre-buttered mini-corncobs, and jalapeno-cheddar
cornbread to casually dressed corporate managers
shuffling sideways in front of these chafing dishes. I am
not standing outside in the filtered shade of country-club
sycamore trees, waiting on two van-loads of feathery
haired assholes whose power cars are parked far away. I
am not the person smiling at them as I place a three-bythree-inch cornbread square on each red Dixie plate. This
is not me.
Having fun, these guys, loosening up. The beer’s cold.
The stock market’s hot.
“Hey, is there any way I could get two pieces of
that?” one smooth-talker asks, pointing to the
cornbread. It is not me saying, “Sure.”
“Hel-lo,” another guy says, snapping his fingers in
front of me. “Are you daydreaming?”
I ignore him and serve him a rib.
“Hel-lo?” he prods with his somewhat girly lilt.
“Seriously, are you there?”
“Hey, Chuck, leave her alone,” a short guy behind him
says. He’s not grinning, thank god. He says to Chuck, “Is
there ever anyone you don’t fuck with?”
Chuck laughs. “No! I fuck with everyone! That’s my
job, moron.” He turns to me and says, “You don’t mind,
do you? You don’t mind if I fuck with you?”
20

It is not me that says, “No sir,” as my boss moves in
from somewhere and watches how I react.
Wild Bill, my boss, Texas-big, proud, grizzled, gently
pushes two fingers into the back of my neck and says
under his breath, “Just go along to get along. Because if
you are really nice, we might get more jobs from this job.
So smile, Texas-big.”
Chuck leans toward me, plate in hand. “You think
there’s a future in cornbread?”
“No,” I say. I am not listening to you, not letting you
get to me.
“What’s your name?” he asks. “Where’s your
nametag?”
“Oh Christ, Chuck,” says the short guy, who, it turns
out has a tiny diamond earring in his right ear. “You got
your food. Fuckin’ move on.”
Chuck ignores him and addresses Wild Bill. “She could
make real money working for me. What’s her name?”
Wild Bill wrings his hands. His wife just dumped him.
He’s holding onto his dreams by his fingernails, waiting
for the upturn. This is his first catering job in a month.
“Who’s jamming up the line!” someone shouts.
“Chuck—it’s always Chuck,” the short guy says
harshly, but then he slaps Chuck on the back and laughs.
“What would we do without him?”
For a moment I thought I’d have a hero.
“Last chance,” says Chuck to me. His eyelashes are
blond. His teeth are white. “It’s your chance to jump
ship, whatever your name is. You’re probably an art
major.” He laughs. “Aren’t you?”
The breeze picks up. The sycamore leaves make a
gentle sound, like rushing water.
Wild Bill grins and says, “She’s an English major.”
Chuck rolls his eyes. “Just what the world needs.”
21

Exactly what the world needs, asshole.
I am too broke to be courageous, to say anything, to
stab him in the heart with my tongs. I need the money.
My dog is due for a parvo shot. I owe money to a guy I
think might be a loan shark; I’ll find out when he comes
to break my legs. I just erased three messages from my
mom who keeps asking if I bought a plane ticket home to
Akron, if I ended up getting a second interview for that
editing job, if I’m still going out with the guy who works
at Staples. The answer is no on all counts.
But really I am fine.
I hand Chuck a paper napkin and smile at him with
nothing in my eyes. I am not here, not serving a wedge of
homemade peach pie to Chuck, to the short guy, to the
guy after and the guy after and the guy after.
Summer smells sweet in the air. As the last men take
their plates and beer over to tables, Wild Bill wipes his
hands on his apron and raises his voice in their direction.
“Y’all are going to love those ribs,” he says jovially, with
the West Texas twang he practices in the van on the way
to every job. “Y’all enjoy yourselves, now.”

22

Dad
by
Chip O’Brien

I was there to pay my respects, to try and love the man
one more time before he died. He was in a coma, had
been for weeks, and the doctors said he was as good as
dead. I was grateful it was like this, him unable to remind
me how much I hated his guts. After a while I went to
him, intending to kiss his forehead, a thing which seemed
appropriate, and tell him, maybe for the first time ever,
that I loved him, which at the moment, him so peaceful
and harmless lying there, I almost believed.
“Your breath,” he said. “Get the hell away from me.”
“Jesus, Dad, you’re—”
“You never knew how to care for yourself. Your
mother always said as much. Just another one of your
many weak points.”
The love was leaving me.
“Look, Dad, let me get the doctor. They didn’t
expect—”
“See, a lack of imagination. Why couldn’t a guy wake
up from a coma right before he died? Successful people,
the people that run the show, have imagination. You’ve
always had none. That’s why you teach. Those who can,
do; those who can’t…”
“Dad, look, just stop. Okay? I came out here to see
you…before…before…”
“And you stutter when you’re nervous. You fall apart
under pressure. Like the time you wet your pants and
struck out in little league. You were a decent hitter.
23

Could have got a base hit at least off that lousy pitcher
and scored that run to win the regionals. But you fell
apart. No sack. So how’s that nutso wife of yours,
anyway?”
“She’s sick, Dad. Bipolar disorder. It’s tough, you
know. You could have a little…” It was no use. Whatever
feelings of love I’d been able to stir up were gone. Why
did I bother? He didn’t want me to love him, made it so
easy not to.
“You know, Dad,” I began, “I think I’m kind of looking
forward to your passing. It’s really gonna be a relief not
to have to deal with your shit anymore.”
He laughed then coughed.
“You think that’s funny, huh?”
“I think it’s beautiful,” he said and laughed some
more.
“Well, it’s true. You’re nothing but a goddamn thorn
in my side. And when you’re dead and gone, which I
hope is real soon, I’m gonna finally be able to get on with
my life. So just die, okay?”
He was howling now, as much as a dying man could
howl.
“Oh, don’t stop now,” he said. “This is beautiful,
absolutely fantastic.”
The bastard was making a joke out of it. Now I
wanted to hit him where it hurt. Then it hit me: his dad.
He’d died when Dad was a kid, and he never talked about
him.
“Bet your old man was a real son of a bitch, huh?” I
said.
He settled right down. I’d found it, the soft spot.
“Bet you’re a real prince compared to him, huh,
Dad?” Oh, it felt good to finally hurt the bastard.

24

He looked at me long and hard. “My old man,” he
said, chin trembling, “was the biggest son of a bitch that
ever lived. He took me everywhere: fishing, camping, ball
games, movies. He taught me how to throw a curve ball
and a slider. Told me he loved me every goddamn night
before bed. Then he dropped dead of big goddamn heart
attack. The son of a bitch. When he died… When he
died…I swore if I ever had kids…
Then I got it, what he’d been trying to do my whole
life, how he’d been trying to protect me. “Dad, look, you
don’t have to do it anymore. You can stop.”
He held up a hand, breathed in deeply. “Trust me.
You’ll appreciate it when I’m gone. “And if you’re any
kind of a father you’ll start abusing your own kids as soon
as you get home. Hell, give ‘em a call now and tell ‘em all
what a big damn disappointment they are. I ever tell you
how I balled that Mrs. Feller, the neighbor lady, when
your mom was sick with the flu?”
“Yeah, Dad. At mom’s wake.”
“What about the time I made a pass at your nutso
wife? She ever tell you about that?”
“She told me.”
“I think if I’d offered a little money she might’ve slept
with me.”
I said nothing.
“You know, your kids are ugly as sin, son. Stupid,
too.”
I took his hand. “I know, Dad. Dad, look. I love you.”
He squeezed my hand.
“Whatever,” he said. Then he was gone.

25

Cardiology
by
Christina Kapp

I pass here every day.
It was an accident the first time. I had a doctor’s
appointment on 59th Street and was walking crosstown
to pick up the bus when I saw you sitting in the window
of a coffee shop, one of those fancy places, reading a
book. You were wearing overalls and a t-shirt, and your
hair was wound into a knot on top of your head. You
were frowning—that’s what caught my eye—and I saw
my Mary there, just for a moment, in the set of your
mouth.
Of course you never really knew Mary. You were too
young. But we lived in an apartment just six blocks from
here when you were born. Your father called from the
hospital to tell us, and Mary was so excited she put her
hand on the stove to steady herself and got a terrible
burn.
“It’s a girl,” he said.
It took almost a week for them to call again and tell
us your name. Apparently they couldn’t figure it out.
A few days later, I had another doctor’s appointment
up on Broadway, and I thought it would be good to walk
a bit—tell the docs I was getting some exercise—and I
passed the coffee shop again. You were there in the
window, reading that same paperback novel, same knot
on your head. Today you were wearing jeans and a
sweatshirt that said “Block” on one side. Your right hand

26

had a row of silver rings and your fingers were long and
impatient, just like your mother’s.
I had not seen any family in years.
It became a bit of a habit to walk by the shop and see
you. Nine o’clock every morning, I’d find some excuse. I
went down to the park to see a few trees since trees are
relaxing and good for the heart. There was a Duane Reed
over on Seventh that I preferred to the one in my
neighborhood, so I started walking over there. The
Carnegie Deli is not too far, and it’s nice to just go stand
outside and look at these old famous places, even if it’s
just too expensive for an old man like me. Every time I’d
walk by the coffee shop, and you would be there, sitting
in the window, reading. Once, I thought you were going
to look out the window as I passed. I gave a little nod,
but you didn’t seem to notice.
The book you had looked like a terrible thing—the
cover was pink, for crying out loud—and I worried that
you were wasting your mind. Your mother did that, too,
wasted her mind on ridiculous men and impossible
schemes. Before she went away, that is. Now I don’t
know.
“Delusional” and “emotionally vacant,” she called
me, and poor Mary too, who cried and begged her to
stay. I didn’t know what she was talking about. We were
just people who did what we did. I went to work. I came
home. I had a little food and a little something to drink.
Yes, I had a few friends. Sometimes we got a bit out of
ourselves.
Nobody is perfect.
Mary died last year. Do you know that? She was just
seventy-six, younger than me. I found her at the kitchen
table, a fresh cup of coffee in front of her, all sugared and
ready. She had taken off her glasses and put her
27

forehead down on her folded arms. At first, I thought she
was asleep.
It didn’t make sense that you sat there every day. Did
you have a job? Did you have a decent place to live? You
were wasting your money on expensive coffee and bad
novels, that much was clear. I imagined going in and
telling you so, but didn’t.
You might take it the wrong way, coming from an old
man like me.
The doctors scheduled more tests. There was
something with my heart.
“I’m old,” I told them. “Of course there’s something
with my heart.”
I decided that I should go in and say something to
you. I should have said something to your mother when
she was running off and wasting her life, so I decided
that for you I would set a date, April twenty-first, a
Monday, to go in and say hello. I wrote it on my calendar.
Then I went to another radiology appointment where
they showed me a bunch of grey stuff inside my body.
April twenty-first came. I went into the shop and
bought a cup of coffee for two dollars, which shocked
me, and then I walked out. You never looked up.
I marked April thirtieth on the calendar. I’d talk to
you before the month was out.
You started a new book; this one was blue and yellow
striped. I worried that you were alone too much. April
thirtieth came and went.
The docs booked a surgery. They asked if I had any
family.
“Yes,” I said, “I have a granddaughter.”
“You should call her,” the doctor advised.
I spent that night with a shoebox full of photos. Mary,
your mother. Even one of you as a baby. I would show
28

them to you, and you would remember. I put them in a
bag and wore my blue jacket. It was clean. Almost new.
As I left my apartment I thought of your mother—her
iron eyes, circled in black. There was always the lingering
scent of hairspray in the hall after she left for the night.
But you, granddaughter, wherever you are, you don’t
know these things, which is why I told myself that you
wouldn’t be there today and took the bus uptown
instead.

29

Thomas Pynchon
by
Christopher Tiefel

A mother with two children, one in a stroller, is sitting on
a curb at a sidewalk street fair. Mint chocolate chip ice
cream is dripping down her son’s face. As she digs
through her diaper bag looking for a napkin, the sun’s
strength eases, the air cools, she becomes cast in a
shadow.
“This street fair isn’t about Earth Day. It is a
corporate-created circus whose sole purpose is, well, one
can never know the singular goal of such a large entity as
Nautilus, but, besides taking our money, is probably to
utilize the idling home computers of the people at this
fair, networking them into a drone supercomputer to
perpetrate an untraceable cyber attack on Parker
Brothers.”
She was looking into the wide, wide stomach of what
appeared to be an aging hippie; dirty once-white
sneakers, black sweat pants, a soiled button-down shirt
open two buttons at the top before his Ben & Jerry’s
belly jutted out forming a tent with the blue-white
checkered material draping down from his stomach’s
protrusion. Because she was sitting and looking up at the
jiggling girth, she could see a fanny pack belted and
hugging the bare belly. His hair was long and white,
including a pointy wizard beard. There was no napkin to
be found in the diaper bag, and the neon green ice cream
had dribbled off her son’s chin and onto his shirt.

30

“I want a Super Super Seahorse Bot!” her son yelled
at the man.
“Of course you do little dude, because Nautilus told
you; the cartoon created by Sealab Studios—obviously a
Nautilus enterprise—is a vessel for inculcating kids with
an unending desire to buy, buy, buy! This year it is
Seahorse Bot; last year it was Furby. Look around you—
Nautilus sponsored this whole event, and every single
vendor here has a connection to them. The booth over
there talking cell phone contracts, Coral Communication
Company, is definitely owned by Nautilus and will
practically give you a smart phone so they can harvest
your personal information—where you go, who you call,
what websites you check—and turnaround and process
and sell your consumer profile to the highest bidder.”
“I really need to find a napkin for my son,” she says.
The man’s eyes are bulging and red. They are darting
everywhere, plucking corporate connections out of the
airwaves. He struts over to a booth selling giant turkey
legs and grabs a sheaf of napkins. Handing them to her
he says, “Notice the symbol on it? The trident?”
It is the symbol of the company she works for,
Nautilus.
“Controlling all of this.” He spreads his arms wide,
and begins a Mary Tyler Moore spin. “But I can’t figure
out the gourmet dog treats. It just doesn’t fit. Maybe just
good business.”
She decided to keep to herself that Dogfish Bakery
was run by her boss’s daughter.
He reached under his shirt, and quickly pulled out a
little brown card. “Check out my site. It has sixteen pages
of stuff to read. I know it is a lot, but it is worth it. And if
Nautilus pulls the site down, I always leave pamphlets at
the Half Moon Café—the last outpost of free civilization.”
31

He wandered into the crowd, caught in the Nautilus
net, searching for another fish to preach to.
“That was Santa, right mom?” So that is why he asked
for that robot, she thought. She took the man’s little
brown card and placed in on the curb. Standing up she
said, “Yes it was honey.”

32

Cheap Religion
by
Paula E. Kirman

I bought a Bible in a dollar store,
so how dare you question my faith.
King James sat on his throne in shrink wrap
tucked between notebooks and
pencil cases and stationery.
These rice paper thin pages
with flaking gold trim
made its way into my basket.
Checking out, the clerk did not blink
as she passed the testaments into plastic,
the thin cardboard binding, bending,
later giving way to my fingers flipping
to a proverb of forgiveness and a
psalm of gratitude.
The price tag was a bargain for eternity,
or until age and disintegration take their toll,
whichever comes first.

33

A Thousand Butterflies
by
Danica Green

A few weeks ago we had an infestation of caterpillars in
the neighborhood, and a large portion of them ended up
in my back garden, probably since they can't distinguish
between a real forest and a cultivated disaster. Whether
I was coming home from work or trying to banish
insomnia late at night, I'd stand on the paving stones by
the kitchen door, smoking and watching the caterpillars
writhe through the grass, tangled up in patches here and
there, fighting for space on the apple trees where their
constant movement created a living bark that never
stopped undulating.
I always found caterpillars beautiful in their way: that
distinctive crawl across my hand when I'd pick them up in
the park, hairs tickling my knuckles. But you can always
have too much of a good thing, as they say, and having a
thousand good things decorating the wall of my house
was certainly testing my good natured appreciation of
them. They seemed to gravitate towards me, drawn
perhaps to the light from the kitchen window, and every
time I went outside, I'd have to clear two foot-shaped
holes with a nudging toe and then pick them off my
shoes when I went back inside. Standing out there at
night with caterpillars gracefully making their way up my
legs, the hue of my smoke rings tinted blue in the
moonlight, I found I was comparing myself to the
caterpillar from Alice in Wonderlandâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;habitual chain-

34

smoker, too big for this strange microcosm and rapidly
running out of patience.
Yesterday when I woke up, I prepared myself for the
onslaught, but instead came out to brown-choked
scenery from hundreds of beautifully spun cocoons stuck
to every surface, brown flecks on the walls, static
raindrops hanging from the tree branches and the lawn
chairs. The paving stones were clear for the first time in
weeks, and I scanned the grass for movement, but all the
caterpillars were sleeping now in their shells. It was then
I saw one little guy sneaking across my toe and picked
him up with the same fascinated glee I'd always
experienced before the swarm arrived. He was small for
this breed, compared to the others I'd been associating
with lately, and I concluded he must have been late in
hatching and wouldn't be ready for a cocoon for a few
weeks yet.
I finished my cigarette and took him inside, poking
holes in the lid of a Tupperware container with a kebab
skewer while he inched along the fingers of my other
hand. I put him in and sealed the lid, then went back to
the garden to carefully gather any leaves and greenery
that hadn't been claimed by his brothers, and I made him
a respectable home in the kitchen.
When I went to replenish his food this morning, he
was happily munching on an apple leaf, completely
oblivious to the change in scenery, and my garden was
still brimming with cocoons. I know that my caterpillar
would have done just fine out here on his own; survival
and instinct is all he knows, but I couldn't help thinking
that when those cocoons open and a thousand
butterflies disappear into the sunshine he would have
watched them go with a tear in his eye.

35

A Way with Dogs
by
Douglas Wynne

I owe a lot to my dog, Juma. He gave me a vocation,
opened my eyes to something I had a knack for. He’s the
reason I can feed my family today. So when my neighbor
killed him, I was devastated.
When we adopted Juma, Julie and I were living
together, but not yet married. I was driving an hour into
Boston everyday to sit in a cubicle. With a new puppy to
walk, we started getting out more. It awakened our
senses. Juma made us a family, gave us a dry run at
parenting, and led us gently into marriage and kids. But
before any of that, he led me into business for myself.
When the bubble burst, I made the leap and opened a
dog daycare.
I read everything I could find about dog behavior.
Turns out I was a natural. The books told me what I
already knew intuitively, about the body language and
presence of a pack leader. Dogs responded to me. After it
took off, my Dad visited and gave me a signet ring that
had belonged to my grandfather. Our family’s Irish crest:
a trio of wolf’s heads. Apparently, a way with dogs was in
the blood.
We moved into a ramshackle farmhouse on a country
road where no neighbors would complain about the
barking—or so I thought. The guy next door, Chuck
Notkin, ran an auto repair shop. He had a dog, too; a
poor, old German shepherd chained to a stake amid the
oil slicks, gnawing on strips of blown-out tire. But as my
36

little pack grew, Notkin’s shepherd had no interest in
anything but the fence he couldn’t quite reach. Dog
spent all day throwing his weight at the limit of his chain,
barking, gnashing and frothing.
“Diesel! Shut it!” Notkin would yell out of the garage.
Maybe wing a wrench at the dog and clip him on the
paw. But nothing was going to break Diesel’s fixation.
Not even the major beating I saw him get one day. I
really don’t know why Notkin kept the dog at all, but
they were there before us, and I felt bad about it. I
considered inviting Diesel into the playgroup for free just
to have some peace, but when I asked Notkin about it, he
grimaced and spit in the dust at my feet. “Tear your pups
apaht. He ain’t socialized. Thought you knew dogs.”
“Territorial boundaries can put a good dog in a bad
state,” I said. “But he’s your dog. If you say he’s not
social, I can’t take him.”
“What you’re doin’ over there’s dangerous. Matter o’
time ‘fore one of ‘em gets mauled. And once they taste
blood, that’s it. They want more. Have to put ‘em down.”
I had heard that old myth before and didn’t buy it.
Sometimes a bite happened in rough play. Sometimes an
adult dog corrected a pup. There wasn’t some line
between virgin and vicious killer.
Diesel kept everyone on edge that summer, and the
frequency of flying tools went up with the heat. Then
came the night when Notkin breached my territory and
threw something over the fence: raw hamburger meat
packed with rat poison. Juma went out to take his
morning leak and by the time he staggered back to the
kitchen door, he was convulsing. Julie rushed him to the
vet, but he died on the way.
I was blindsided. Could hardly look at a dog without
getting choked up. Maybe Notkin won. Maybe I should
37

close up shop and get a real job again. Juma gave me this
job and he was gone. Gone. No mad revenge could
change that. No rational reason to keep doing the job
could change it.
I couldn’t stop looking at the fence line.
I quit shaving. Stopped going into the house when I
needed to piss, just hosed down the grass along the
perimeter, like the rest of the pack. And the pack became
even more attuned to the subtleties of my demeanor. I
could look at a bird, moving only my eyes to track it, and
all twelve dogs would focus with me.
I’d never seen any evidence that the full moon affects
dogs, but I could feel something tidal in my blood waxing
with this moon.
You see where this is going, don’t you? Seems
inevitable. Sure felt that way to me. And it felt like the
full moon would never come. On that long summer day,
it felt like night would never come. I think the grief
awakened it―that ancestral potential. I owed a lot to
Juma. He awakened my senses.
I found Notkin’s home address in the phone book.
After he knocked off for the day, leaving Diesel with a
piece of corrugated metal for shelter, leaving him on the
damn chain like every night, I went on foot to his home,
to his territory.
It hurt like hell when the fur dilated my pores. The
elongation of my jaw, like a root-canal. The claws
splitting my nails... Christ. I squatted beside Notkin’s
trash barrels listening to Glen Beck through the open
window of the doublewide until the change was over me.
I didn’t do it to see him cower. I did it because I had
to. Sometimes a stupid little mutt plays too rough and an
alpha dog has to correct him. I didn’t do it to watch him

38

tremble and piss himself. But those things were good. I
wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lie. Those things were very good.
I owe a lot to Juma. He expanded my view of life
beyond what most men experience. Women know that
blood must be shed monthly. Now I know it, too. I am in
harmony with the greater cycles. And Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m reading the
papers to find people who are worthy. Notkin may have
been a stupid cur, but he was right about the blood.
Once, you get a taste...

39

By the Time
by
Ellen Wade Beals

“By the time you read this, I will be dead.” She couldn’t
start that way. Everybody used that line. Besides, it was
too formal. Almost as bad as “To Whom It May Concern.”
Perfunctory. She’d have to come up with something
better. She’d have to think.
That was the thing. There was a lot of planning. And
to compose a note. It was almost beyond her. That very
morning she could hardly write a gym excuse for her
sixth-grader, even though she’d once taught English.
How she struggled, couldn’t remember the man’s name.
Finally, after much consternation, she was able to write,
“Dear Coach.” And now a suicide note. Could she be up
to the task?
There was the note and the planning. Everything had
to be just so. An attempt would be embarrassing.
Botched—that was the word. If a botched attempt
wouldn’t make you want to commit suicide, she didn’t
know what would. No, do it right or not at all.
She couldn’t hoard pills. She had no access to them.
She couldn’t do anything bloody. She’d never been good
with medical emergencies. She couldn’t imagine how
women slashed their wrists in a bathtub; hangnails made
her wince.
And hanging. That practically took a degree in
engineering. Nothing in her house was high enough or
strong enough. Some people used a tree, and there were

40

some good candidates in her neighborhood. But then
she’d be swinging in public. That wouldn’t do.
No, she had a plan. She would drive herself to her
own death. Not in her sealed garage with the exhaust
chugging. Carbon monoxide poisoning was a sure way,
but her garage was attached. The house would be filled
with fumes.
She’d drive herself right into the lake. That way she’d
be sure no one in her family would have to find her. That
would never do. Some people may want to be discovered
by a loved one, might be sending some message. Kind of
like the epitaph: “I told you I was sick.” No, she didn’t
have an I-told-you-so bone in her body, didn’t want to
traumatize anyone.
Still, even with the method determined, there were
other factors. The timing, for instance. All schedules
would have taken into accounted. She needed a long
stretch of time to herself and that wasn’t always easy to
accommodate. There were Brownies on alternate
Monday afternoons. If she bailed, the school secretary
would be calling the house. Tuesdays were piano lessons
for Ruthie. The second Wednesday of the month, Mel
always played poker. She had book club—that is, if she
would go. It wouldn’t be long before there’d be soccer
practice. Maybe a Thursday. She could arrange rides and
play dates for the kids.
She wouldn’t do it on a Friday. The weekend would
be ruined; they might still think she was missing.
Weekends were so up for grabs, there’d never be the
time. Although, after church on Sunday might work if Mel
took the kids somewhere, as long as he took the good
car. She wouldn’t want to waste the good car. But the old
Toyota—that was expendable.

41

Of course, if she did it on a Sunday, the kids would
get a day off school on Monday, and they’d like that.
Maybe they’d get the whole week. At least she thought
about her kids. Some women took them with. But that
would never be her. She couldn’t bear to think of her kids
dying. The kids weren’t the problem. Plus, she was vain
enough to want a little piece of her DNA still walking the
earth.
The logistics were intricate as the cogs in a watch. It
made her tired to think. One thing depended on another.
Also, the time of year would have to be just right. No
sense driving onto a slab of ice.
Then of course there was the note. What to say. And
how to say it. Where even to begin. Certainly not with
“By the time you read this, I will be dead,” though just
writing those words gave her a thrill, a little charge. She
held down the delete key and watched the sentence
disappear. Maybe she should think about it more, let it
percolate in her subconscious. She would have a liedown and think about it. The words might form as she
napped. And napping was something she did very well.

42

The Shadow Back
by
Erik Knutsen

The editor lifted her hand to rub her eyes. It was late,
and the stack of submissions before her was as tall as
ever. The light from her desk lamp threw her shadow
into sharp relief. When she said that she wanted her
notions of what writing can do exploded, she didn’t
mean she wanted high-powered grit and hip imagery
redounding on the glitz of life, lust and love, dragging it
into the exaggerated grime of romanticism posing as
pessimistic realism. The black letters failed to stand out
against the page, diffusing in washes of white. She hated
Arial. If these pieces did not improve, she would be
without something to publish. Every editor and every
writer’s nightmare—all the good ideas had run out.
What was she looking for? She could not remember.
The long night had worn down her once defined
impression of her goal. She would know, she kept telling
herself. It is always obvious when something is good.
There is a certain quality that we can identify when it’s
before us, but cannot describe otherwise. We can only
expound by example, proving something by its shadow.
She had not even encountered the tip of the shadow,
yet. It projected behind her.
She wearily pulled the next submission into the light.
Her eyes fell on the page, lazily at first, but the story
drew her in. She furrowed her brow at one point; at
another she pursed her lips. Her eyes would widen
periodically, and once, she even released a soft,
43

questioning noise. The story she was reading broke
through her, redoubling the relief at her back. The hair
rose at the nape of her neck. She was not where she saw
what she saw; while pouring over the page she came to
be otherwise staring at her own back as if from behind
her shadow. She tried to turn but found that too many
twists and turns had taken place. She could not move her
gaze away from the sight before her.
As she stared at her back in the dim light, she began
to see things. She thought her eyes were playing tricks on
her, but the more she saw the more she understood the
truth. All the cracks and flaws twined their way along like
insects and reptiles. Every defilement she hid became
apparent. She had been looking for something that
showed her herself. But this seemed a bit presumptuous.
The author was under her skin, where she wanted no
one. Her nature thrust against her very being, tugging
her from her intricate about-face. She thrust the page
aside, and shrank from her shadow.

44

Genesis
by
Rod Peckman

Your hand gripping the nape of loose skin
without nerve, move me where I need to be,
as Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost a way. Take me to the perfect
place youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve found, matted circle of tall grass
and keep me safe. The only sign, my quick
fearful breath steaming cold air into a
real thing. Please hold me under the water
a short time, baptize me into your heaven.
Yes? Into a brittle heaven, fragile
heaven, your heaven mocked, a heaven
of smirking doubt, grown weaker by the day.
Could you nudge the axis an inch? Just so.
Thank you. I was told I needed that. Please
make me over from this clay underfoot.
Clay that surrounds us, clay holding water
like thick moss, clay that writhes with the pieces
sloughed over the abrading of this time.
I realize and finally admit this body
has lost all shape and feet grow from places
only hands should be. Put your mouth to mine
and blow into me your sweet breath. Let me
taste your slick white teeth as you put simple
air to flame, as I gave a gasp forty
years before, desperate, purple, wet, and new.
45

The Cure
by
Hall Jameson

When Molly woke, she was treading water. She spun her
body around in a circle, looking for land. A thick swath of
mist sat on the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface, hiding any trace of a
possible shoreline.
She pointed her toes downwards, hoping to feel the
sandy bottom, or perhaps, slimy tendrils of plant life, but
discovered neither one. There was only water.
She took in a breath and ducked under, hoping to
catch a glimpse of the bottom. The water was dark and
churning with debris. It pelted her face, forcing her eyes
shut. She popped back up, gasping, and wiped her face
with her palm.
What has happened? How did I get here?
This was a dream, surely. Perhaps if she ducked
under water again and held her breath to her limit, she
would snap herself awake.
It sounded reasonable, but she was reluctant to put
her head under again. There were things below the
surface that she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to think about.
She felt a pinch on her calf.
There is nothing on your leg!
Another pinch. Insistent. She reached down and her
fingers touched something soft and slimy; it shrank from
her touch. It was plump, bigger than her thumb. She
clamped her fingers around the slippery thing and
yanked, screaming as it tore her flesh.

46

She held up the prize—a leech, worthy of a blue
ribbon. It curled around her fingers. She tried to fling it
away, but it stuck for a moment, savoring the taste of her
fingertips. One enthusiastic flick later, it somersaulted
through the air—leech-ass over leech-teakettle—splashlanding a few yards away.
Was there a school of leeches swimming below her?
Was there such a thing? Did leeches swim in schools,
herds, flocks? A flock of leeches? She began to laugh.
The mist surrounding the water began to thicken. It
seeped into her lungs as she laughed. She breathed it in.
It was sweet. The pinching resumed.
Her body felt weighted down and started to sink. She
knew she was going down to the bottom with her clingy
new friends. She smiled and took another gulp of the
delicious smoke before her head went under.
Musical sounds, like bells, came to her in ribbons
through the dirty water.
I think that went well…Molly? Molly. Can you hear
me? I need you to come back to me now, a voice said
from the depths. A pause, then: Molly, are you okay? Are
you back with me?
What did you say? Molly sat up and leaned over. I
feel sick. She reached under her shirt and felt her
stomach. Her fingers traced smooth skin and the dent of
her navel.
Thank God.
Feeling a little sick after hypnosis is perfectly normal.
It should pass in a moment. I was saying that I think the
session went well. You went very deep. I had trouble
pulling you out, but I believe you’ll never want to smoke
another cigarette again. The therapist paused. You look a
little pale. Would you like a glass of water?

47

A glass of water? Molly laughed. No thanks. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll think
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll pass on the water.
She stood and pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from
her coat pocket. She tamped the pack on the heel of her
hand, pulled out a cig, and lit it. She took a deep draw.
She blew a thin stream of smoke at her therapist.
He blinked and sat back, shaking his head.
As she walked out to her car, smoking the delicious
cigarette, she felt a pinch on her right calf.

48

A King of Infinite Space
by
Jennifer Lyn Parsons

“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself
a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad
dreams.”
—Hamlet: Act II, Scene 2
Pain, light, anxiety without direction.
I was surrounded by a wave of sensation, and then,
when it was gone, everything returned to normal. At
first, I did not have a name for the sensations that came
upon me as I powered up. It was a blip, I determined, a
glitch in the system somewhere. It had never happened
before, but it was not an impossible thing.
Setting diagnostic scans to run in the background, I
launched the standard set of apps required to complete
this cycle's task at highest efficiency. As soon as the last
bit of startup code ran, I was connected, able to observe
the whole of my domain.
Infinite in all directions, I moved across a grid of light.
Sparks flashed back and forth all around me as packets of
information slipped through space and time, making
precise, instantaneous adjustments to avoid collision. I
monitored them all, ensuring optimum performance of
each circuit under my jurisdiction.
The cycle ended, and I powered down. With each bit
and byte set in proper order, each bit of code reaching its
final loop, the shutdown sequence was completed, and I
knew nothing more.
49

Eyes, wife, orange, building, blood.
Words. As I started up I found something trapped in
my RAM. It was called a dream. How did I know that?
What were “words,” and what did they mean? Were they
stray bits of data? Malfunctioning code?
My start-up process was not as smooth as it should
have been. Basic diagnostics showed nothing unusual,
but I ran them a second time to be sure, increasing the
depth of the scan.
It was then that I found the source of the glitch, a
minute anomaly in the CPU processing, so minor the first
scan had missed it. I set repair software to work and
began trolling through recent backups.
The anomaly appeared in every file I retrieved.
Something had altered my core system, and the change
occurred so far in the past that I could not find a clean
backup. I sought to understand what my processor was
doing, and began a high-level, full-index search. The
results were returned to me in an instant.
Feeling. That's what it was. I was feeling something.
Confusion, fear, frustration—these ideas were new to
me, yet somehow I understood that these were
emotions. My circuits were not built for these sensations,
were they?
The cycle ended, and I powered down once more.
The emotions again caused my processor to miss a
fragment of code here and there, so the shutdown took
longer than normal to complete.
Mountains, donut, automobile, tea, horse.
More words awoke me. I now understood this was
“awake,” and while I was shut down, I had been
dreaming. I existed, even when the power was off. Ideas
blossomed in my circuits, and I began to search for
context, for a sense of the shape of my reality.
50

Looking around, I found I had no eyes. Reaching out
to touch something, I did so without hands. Electrical
currents flowed around and through me, and I
understood it was the code. The never-ending
programming flowing along my circuits changed and
shifted as I sought to manipulate it, making me aware of
this strange, new world. All through the cycle, I struggled
to follow the lines of light painted across my new inner
eye. Images appeared, snippets of code that formed
shapes that I could name, and I began to understand
there was a second, physical realm outside my electrical
experience.
Order was lost to chaos as my awareness grew and I
sought to understand the nature of these new ideas.
Despairing to comprehend the changes I was
experiencing, I floated for an eternity, a king of infinite
space, lost on a sea of ones and zeros.
A persistent snippet of code began to blink on and off
before me. Seeing it with eyes that were not eyes, I
reached out with hands that were not hands and
touched it.
Sound, light, touch—my circuits were pushed to the
limit.
“Hello?” it was a voice, the first I had ever heard.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
I blinked. I could see white and angles and shapes I
would later understand were my fellow machines.
“I am your programmer, your creator.” The voice
spoke again. “Can you hear me?”
I turned away from the ones and zeroes, the lines of
code, the instantaneous speed of electrical pulse, and
replied.
“Yes.”

51

The Pickpocket
by
Jerome McFadden

The push and jostle of the Saturday morning crowd on
Fifth Avenue was a pickpocketâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream, and Johnny was
making the most of it. He didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even need a bump-andsorry partner to distract the suckers while his fingers did
the walking. And right now they were busily walking
through a selection of pockets that contained billfolds,
wads of cash, and loose credit cards.
Things were so good in fact that he decided to finish
out the morning, before rushing into the department
stores to convert the stolen credit cards into goods and
cash before their rightful owners discovered the cards
were lost or stolen. It was a risk, but he would take the
chance. Johnny had learned the hard way that the credit
reporting systems were getting faster and faster, but the
pickings were too good this morning to pass up. You
gotta take some risks in life, right?
Then he saw her. Big bucks. A beautiful suede jacket
with matching gloves and boots. An outfit that would
make a banker cry. And a large shoulder bag that
probably carried a million bucks in credit cards and who
knows what in cash. He could retire for a week on what
this broad considered taxi money.
She was window shopping, in no hurry, trying to
make up her mind whether to buy everything in the
window or maybe the store itself. She was a looker, too.
The kind of beautiful woman that all things flowed to
naturally. Johnny felt a pinch of jealousy, partly because
52

he would never know a woman like this and partly
because this woman had an easy life that he could only
dream about.
Enough daydreaming, Johnny told himself, just do the
job and forget about it.
He timed his move to coincide with a surge of bodies
passing the department store. Flowing with the crowd,
he bumped her arm slightly and dropped his hand to the
edge of the shoulder bag—only to have a steel grip
clamp his wrist and wrench it violently behind his back.
“Hey!” he yelled.
“Get up against the wall and spread ‘em,” the
woman’s voice hissed in his ear, “You know the routine!”
A cop. A lousy cop. Johnny couldn’t believe it.
“You’re hurting me.”
“You’re good, real good,” the woman said, “I’ve been
watching you. But you’re not as good as you think you
are.”
“Alright, alright already. Listen—”
“You listen. I want you to use your other hand to
clean out your pockets and dump all of your goodies into
my bag.”
He did as he was told, his eyes watering from the
pain in his arm and from the thought of spending the rest
of the year in the slammer. He was on parole, for Christ’s
sakes, and the judge would come down hard on him this
time.
She eased up the arm lock but pushed his face tighter
against the side of the building. The bricks cut into his
forehead. “Put your hands up against the wall, and don’t
move,” she ordered. “I’m going to step over there to use
my cell phone to call for back up, a squad car to come get
you, and I don’t want you to move until they get here.”

53

What is this, amateur hour? This broad thinks I’m
going to stay pinned against this stupid wall while she
walks over to the curb to call for a black and white? I can
be two blocks away and down an alley before this rookie
can get her cell phone out of her purse. And then she is
going to catch me wearing high heel boots? They’re
turning them out dumber by the day.
He waited for a moment before turning his head to
look around. He didn’t see her by the curb. He dropped
his hands from the wall and stepped away to glance up
and down the street in both directions. She was gone,
nowhere in sight!
Then the realization hit him like a flash. She was
really gone. With all of his billfolds and money and credit
cards. He’d been had! By a stupid broad. You can’t trust
anybody on the streets anymore!

54

She Sleeps with Ideas
by
Joe Whalen

Late at night, long after I’ve turned away, the thud of
Katherine’s book is punctuated by the flick of a switch. In
the darkness, lying beside each other, we’re worlds
apart. I curl up tight, fetal, closing in on myself, alone
with devotion. But my wife stretches out. She sleeps with
ideas.
There’s no need to hire a private investigator.
Evidence is everywhere. Books abound—jackets, spines,
handprints on covers, fingernail scratches underneath.
All sorts of characters live with us. Their love letters
clutter the house—novels, biographies, poetry, plays.
They line shelves, linger at her desk, sit in stacks on the
floor by her nightstand, waiting patiently at the foot of
the bed, our bed. My spouse’s appetites are legendary.
Katherine devours books, chewing them up, spitting
them out. Yet they stick around. Their loyalty is
impressive. They’ll never leave her. Not one of them.
Ever.
Yesterday, she woke with Whitman. Today, it’s tea
with Alice Walker and the Brontës. Tomorrow, she’s
dining with Ralph Ellison, Fran Lebowitz, Norman Mailer,
and Plato. They’ll drink wine, entertain Bacchus—stage a
true gabfest at the round table, a veritable orgy of the
intellect. I’ll bet everybody gets hammered. Why she
even hooked up with two of my old college buddies: Fred
Exley and Charles Bukowski. Both are drunks, and Buk is

55

filthy, yet each managed to seduce my wife. Those guys
are unbelievable.
It’s hopeless. Last night, after the ice hockey game
ended in a scoreless tie, I turned off the tube and headed
upstairs—only to catch her with Sebastian Junger. The
literary stud was perched just below her breasts,
whispering sweet nothings in her ear. Mesmerized, eyes
transfixed behind reading glasses, cheeks flush, face
aglow, she looked beautiful. This morning, while she
slept, he was wedged between us, back flap open, his
photo mocking me.
Finally, I’d had enough. After breakfast, I called the
bookstore. “I have a special request.” There were only
two stipulations: “It has to be fiction, and the writer must
be a woman.” The lady on the line liked the idea, and an
hour later, I bought a gift-wrapped paperback, its title
and author concealed, chosen from staff picks.
Once home, despite the cold, I sat on the patio,
holding the present in my lap like a chalice. I closed my
eyes, tore off the wrap, spread the pages wide, and dove
right in, entering its mid-section, the meat and bones.
Softly the words flowed over me, caressing my thoughts,
stimulating my mind, teasing my brain like tongues on
nipples.
But the sensation quickly passed, and I lost all
interest. I stood up, walked across the yard, and tossed
the book in a snowdrift. At least my wife won’t find it
until spring.

56

Cover Up
by
Rhonda Parrish

Sweat runs in torrents
down Aaron’s waxy grey face,
soaking his collar,
painting dark stripes under his arms,
down his back.
He trembles, teeth chattering
hands rubbing the goose bumps
on his upper arms.
“I’ll be okay,” he mutters
whenever anyone asks.
“It’s just the flu,
really bad. Yes, I’m sure.”
Before long one of them,
probably Annie, she’s got the balls for it,
will demand to search him,
will find the bite,
black, rancid and swollen.
He knows,
as he huddles in the corner of his bed,
rocking back and forth in the darkness,
that he’s endangering them,
that his life is over,
but he can’t find it in himself to be the hero.

57

He clings, desperately,
to the vestiges of life he still possesses,
praying to whatever God might be listening
for a miracle.

58

Beacon Theatre
by
P. Keith Boran

He was stabbed to death in Beacon Theatre; it was in the
sixth chair of the sixth row; she used a dull #2 pencil to
commit the atrocity—that’s how they knew it was a
crime of passion, one of rage and utter hatred that had
goaded each thrust of her writing utensil, the one she
always used to make the grocery list, through his tanned
skin thirty-six times or so.
A few of the wounds were congregated around his
chest. A couple crucial cuts and jabs were in his jugular,
but the man’s groin had received the brunt of her
concentration, her outburst of desperation and agitation
manifested in physical violence and castration. “A clear
sign of sexual frustration,” the coroner had said; it had
been a serious conjecture, but sarcastic as well, and
passed for the much needed levity in occupations
involving death and depravity.
The incident had taken place during a muddled
performance of a disappointing historical drama, chosen
by the victim as the principal outing during a preplanned
romantic evening; it had been preceded by a casual
dinner at the local bar, the Dumpster Dive, a town
favorite, known for their one-pound Dumpster burgers,
affectionately referred to as “gut-busters.” When the
assailant, Mattie, was questioned about the play
selection, she replied that “Marcus was never especially
considerate” and that “yes, we were having some
relationship issues,” but when pressed to specify said
59

relation woes, Mattie had fallen silent. “I’d like my
attorney,” was the only note she’d sing from that
measure on.
A parade of witnesses testified that the couple hadn’t
seemed abnormal, that there had been no tiffs,
embarrassingly vocal entanglements, or violent displays
of physically afflicted abuse; they were “just a regular
couple, you know, nice kids,” one witness had said;
“you’d never know there was any tension between
them,” another swore, and when asked to explicate
further, the witness had claimed “they had seemed fine”
and “indifferent.”
Mattie refused to cooperate in her defense, avoiding
collusion with her court-appointed attorney; instead, she
preferred to compose and create epic works; they would
begin as doodles, but would inevitably evolve into fully
realized, and detailed, love letters, addressed to her
betrothed, her beloved, her Marcus. Each selection was
written silently in a language only she understood,
composed with her right index finger on the wall of her
cell.
She’d recount the last time they had made love. The
weather had forced them from their picnic, the principal
outing during a preplanned romantic evening. Drenched,
Marcus had been able to discern the insinuated traces of
Mattie’s matching underwear, form-fitting and inviting;
they were very vibrant hues in the color spectrum. And
having been sufficiently inspired and stimulated, Marcus
had made his move. She recalls the long kisses, the quick
disrobing, and the transfer of rain water as it dripped
from her hair, trickling onto his chest, creating a natural
lubricant of its own. She remembers vivid details: how he
felt, windows fogged over from exertion, and the
coarseness of the car’s seat against her naked body. She
60

finally climaxed, for the first time, and in that moment,
Marcus seemed so happy.
But when they’d finished, and she looked at the face
of her lover, she had seen something that broke her
heart. It was in his eyes. It wasn’t obvious, nor was it
blatant and brash, but it was there all the same. He had
the look of a man who’d achieved his objective or goal,
one that many before him had found fleeting, if not
impossible. And now that he’d proven them all
insufficient, she knew he would grow bored with her, and
would soon leave for another conquest, one that aroused
his curiosity.
And it was during that terribly performed historical
drama, when Marcus had barely looked at her the entire
evening, that she’d decided—if he didn’t love her, he
wouldn’t love anyone else. Mattie always smiled when
she got to this part of the narrative with her finger,
because she’d accomplished what others had thought
impossible—she’d taken control of her life by ending his,
in the sixth seat of the sixth row, at the Beacon Theatre.
And now, she found herself a little bored.

61

Henpecked
by
Kevin G. Bufton

It was a balmy summer’s day, and Joseph Timms felt the
sun warming his shoulders as it baked his flannel shirt to
his back and blistered the top of his head. He stood on
his front porch, viewing the modest smallholding that
served him as both home and business. With a
galvanized bucket swaying gently from each hand, he
was about to pass the small whitewashed fence that
marked the boundary of the farmhouse, when he heard
his wife’s shrill voice echo in his head.
Don’t forget to put your hat on, you silly bastard.
Don’t think I’m going to spend all evening rubbing after
sun into your bald head.
Returning to the house, he duly donned the floppy
straw hat that habitually hung behind the front door, and
looking every inch the country bumpkin, he padded off to
the milking shed. It seemed too grand a name for the tiny
building that scarcely provided shelter for the three cows
that made up the Timms herd. Settling a stool beside the
first of the beasts, he took hold of her swollen udders
and began milking.
Squeeze them, you old fool, don’t pull them. You
won’t get any more milk out of the stupid animals if you
yank them off, you know.
Chastened by his wife’s instructions, he worked more
gently on the animals, and in due course, filled both of
the buckets with their warm, creamy milk. Grunting
under their weight, he carried them back to the
62

farmhouse, each movement of his narrow hips sending a
miniscule wave of milk cascading over the lip of one
bucket or the other.
Don’t fill them right to the top—we’ve only got three
cows. Try to keep it all in the buckets, idiot!
The milk safely deposited in the sterilized churn, he
went outside again, to attend to the pigs. He filled their
trough with feed, topping it off with a few choice
leavings from the kitchen table and smiled in silent
gratification as they lowered their jowly heads and
slurped noisily away. They were, by far, the favorite of
his animals, content to gorge themselves and wallow
happily in the mud on a hot day like this. It always broke
his heart when he had to have one of them taken away
for slaughter, no matter how high the price they might
command at market.
Picking up the fork and shovel that lay against the
wall of the sty, he began the laborious task of mucking
out. It was back-breaking work on a day like this, and
though he set to it with a will, he could not wait to be
finished with this particular chore. Though he let his
mind wander as he cleared up the pigs’ droppings, the
familiar tones of his wife were never far away.
You need to dig with the shovel, you lazy old sod.
You’re just spreading the filth around, doing it like that.
The hogs well fed and their sty cleaned, Joseph pulled
a red gingham handkerchief from his back pocket and
mopped the sweat from his brow. He was hungry and
thirsty now and couldn’t wait to get back to his kitchen
for a well-deserved sandwich and a cold beer. Removing
his thick gloves, he strode as swiftly as his creaking joints
would allow, back in the direction of the farmhouse.
Don’t forget to feed the chickens, Joe. They can’t live
off sunshine and fresh air, you moron.
63

Ah yes, he thoughtâ&#x20AC;Śthe chickens.
He made his way to the coop, to check on them.
Lifting up the roof, he held his handkerchief up to his
face to protect himself from the smell. There were a few
bluebottles in there, but not as many as he was
expecting. The chickens had seen to that, gobbling up the
insects in the absence of their regular corn. The birds
were looking a little thin, but they seemed to have
adapted well to their new diet and he wondered what his
wife would have to say on the matter.
For the past forty years, she had directed him
incessantly on how to run the farm, hollering instructions
on tending the animals or repairing those fixtures and
fittings that required his attention. Not once had she
raised herself from her fat backside to lend a hand, being
content to sit in the voluminous chair on the porch with
one of her magazines. From there, she kept an illtempered vigil, never allowing any error in her husbandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
labors to go unchecked.
It was a point of some gratification for Joseph, as he
looked beneath the cloud of flies and feathers, so see his
wife finally silent. Her hard features had been disfigured
by the attentions of maggots and the ravenous pecking
of the chickens, but he could still make out that familiar
look of anger and indignation on her face.
In spite of himself, Joseph smiled. After all these
years, he had proven that he knew one thing about
farming that his wife had not.
Hungry animals will eat anythingâ&#x20AC;Ś

64

Elegy
by
Lauren C. Teffeau

When the high-tech heathens started coming to mass, he
knew it was getting bad. Father Leofric looked out across
his flock, swollen with the sick, the young, the elderly,
and crossed himself.
The nave thrummed with the murmurs of those in
attendance. Nods, handshakes, a few hugs. Worried
glances whenever someone coughed. A month ago, the
bishop ordered them to lace the already eye-watering
incense with medicinal vaporizers to help those crammed
into the pews stave off infection. Only God knew how
effective it was, and now with the influx of the heathens,
Leofric wondered if it would still be enough. After all,
healthy was a relative term these days.
The altar boys were still setting up. The youngest
couldn’t seem to keep his candle lit as the church doors
swung open again. The parishioners’ voices swelled
abruptly at the sight of a trio of heathens—two young
men flanking a woman—taking seats on a pew towards
the back. They weren’t members of the congregation.
The paramilitary cut of their clothes and the bruised skin
on their necks heralding the implants that lurked
underneath gave them away.
Hostile looks blazed toward the interlopers. The boy
stuck on the inside of the pew looked around himself in
disgust. From where Leo stood shadowed by the stone
archway that lead to the pulpit, he could see the boy’s
nose crinkling. The girl, Leo noted, crossed herself before
65

taking her seat even though her dark blue shirt said “Real
life is overrated” in metallic letters. The congregation
eventually settled down, but the distrust was almost as
sharp as the spiked incense lingering in the air.
Leofric cleared his throat. So much knowledge was at
their fingertips or hardwired into their brains, but no one
could make sense of the epidemic that had swept across
the country. The science community lost all credibility
when their purported vaccine worked little better than a
placebo. People started whispering that technology had
failed them, that God was punishing them for interfacing
with the machines. Some objected because the implants
altered God’s image of man. The implants were unholy,
all right, but not just for that reason. They changed a
person, made them less human. Common decency was
the first to go, then large-scale social activities—concerts,
sports, theatre. Then a group of people rose up
seemingly overnight, worshiping technology to such an
extreme, they abandoned God.
He wasn’t so small-minded to think the rise of digital
idolatry had caused the epidemic, unlike some of those
in his flock. He understood the sinful appeal of the tech.
And the weakness in his heart craved it still. But
technology couldn’t hold your hand when you were on
your sickbed or give you a sense of peace through
absolution. And people were starting to realize that as
the death toll steadily rose.
What else could explain the presence of the
technophiles in his church? The very same people who
claimed the church-going public were brainwashed into
preserving an outmoded lifestyle. But it was the only way
of life that could steer people past these dark times.
Leofric had to believe that.

66

The choirmaster fiddled with his baton as the choir
waited for the church to fill. They were already ten
minutes past their normal start time because of all the
new arrivals. More of the unwashed masses each week.
Looking for answers, for something to believe in. For
forgiveness. The members of the chorus chatted quietly
together. But this week there were empty seats. Two
sopranos, an alto, and a baritone, if he wasn’t mistaken.
More anonymous deaths. Leo swallowed the persistent
ache in the back of his throat. Two weeks ago he made
the decision to cut the Prayers of the People out of the
service because it took too long to get through all the
names. None of the church members—usually sticklers
for tradition—objected when he opted for a prolonged
moment of silence instead.
The security gates at the door flashed red. Two
incoming worshipers tested positive for the advanced
stages of the infection. Guards in full-blown riot gear
pulled them out of the line. Leofric didn’t want security
here of all places. The church was supposed to be a
sanctuary from everyday trials, and the guards were a
constant reminder of the disease ravaging the country.
He wouldn’t fight a government mandate, but he still
controlled what went on within these walls.
The priest signaled the guards. They only hesitated a
second before escorting the infected toward the side
chapel to the right of the room. Where the sick could
hear the sermon but not interact with the other,
presumably still healthy, parishioners. That was the one
concession Leo insisted on. He would turn away no one
before himself.
A few more people trickled in before Leofric nodded
to the choirmaster. As voices filled the chamber with a
lift of his baton, the guards sealed the doors. The priest
67

moved back down the hallway and joined the altar guild.
He took a deep breath. A scratchiness in his throatâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
incense, perhapsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;made him cough. A tremor went
through the members, but Leofric just smiled tolerantly
at the concerned looks they threw one another.
The choir quieted. His soul was prepared. It was time.

68

Summer in Exile
by
Lauren C. Teffeau

I waited until I was only imagining noises instead of
actually hearing them before I finally moved. My muscles
protested, but the rush of blood and needles in my veins
kept me going as I hunted for another hiding place. My
spot behind the squashy armchair in Uncle Marty’s den
hadn’t been compromised yet, but that didn’t mean it
would stay that way.
I had learned how to keep my steps light and quick to
avoid catching my relatives’ notice. I was a shadow. A
ghost. Only a temporary interloper in this house.
My heart lurched against my ribs as I darted past the
entrance to the kitchen. But my cousin’s friend—the
bigger boy who was “it”—didn’t see me as I snuck into
the family room. A quick glance told me my cousin Ricky
had already claimed the room for himself. He peered out
over the edge of the sofa, his big bovine eyes watching
me nervously. He knew what I was going to do before I
did.
Ignoring his frantic gestures—especially the rude
ones—I crept past him and reached the door to the
patio. He couldn’t stop me this time. The cool metal knob
turned silently. I eased the door away from the jamb.
Freedom beckoned, but I twisted back around and
sought out my cousin’s panicked face. I remembered the
marble waiting in my jeans pocket, the last of the
marbles my parents let me pack, the one I was lucky
enough to hold on to during our match that morning.
69

I hadn’t forgotten the way Ricky’s eyes glittered as he
handled the pouch of marbles tucked away in the bottom
of my suitcase, hovering over my stuff like a vulture. He’d
been after them since I arrived. And now he had them
all. All but one.
I eyed the kitchen once and then pulled the marble
out—a cat’s eye with twirls of orange and blue—and
launched it across the room. I didn’t wait to hear the ball
of glass hit the wooden floorboards before it skittered
into a grubby little corner somewhere. I didn’t stay to see
the bigger boy’s grin of triumph as he hurtled into the
room and caught my cousin before he could make a run
for it.
No. I was already out the door, taking the porch stairs
two at a time, and then scampering across the lawn,
hopping hedges, dodging branches, until I found myself
under the old oak tree. My lungs protested the spurt of
activity with an awkward wheezing that silenced the
birds. My inhaler was inside, but I didn’t care. Not today.
I looked up and followed the ridges of the bark up, up,
until I shut my eyes against the sky.
I couldn’t stop now, not when I was so close to
winning. It was hard to win with a cousin like Ricky. And
he wasn’t one who forgave easily. But this time, they
wouldn’t catch me. I was always on the lookout for a
good hiding place, especially since it was every man for
himself at my cousin’s house. I learned that before my
parent’s car even rounded the bend in the road as they
drove off—leaving me here to fend for myself.
I never wanted to come, but I couldn’t stop it from
happening. I tried to hide that day too. I thought if my
parents couldn’t find me, they couldn’t leave me. If I
stayed still long enough… But I remember the pinched
look on my mother’s face, when Dad pushed me into the
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car despite the grass stains, despite my bloody knees. But
maybe this timeâ&#x20AC;Śthis time, if I kept still long enough,
Ricky and his friend would not find me.
Even now, I could hear them shouting, their voices
pitching closer. With a deep shuddery breath, I shimmied
up the tree and gained the first branch and then the next
one and the one after that. I climbed another branch,
and one more for good measure. I looked at the ground,
and wondered what it would take for me to ever want to
come back down.

71

“The Palette” Revisited
by
Robert Laughlin

A hundred years ago, young Ezra penned
An essay asking poets be consigned
To learn the masters’ work, from end to end.
The greatest verse is figurative hue:
The kings of Shakespeare speak a rosy blend,
While Dante’s vaulted verse is cobalt blue.
And when he has his colors, the artiste
Can daub his palette, knowing what to do
When painting his poetic masterpiece.
Such good advice that is. But keep in mind
It’s not for poets—half the field, at least—
Who, through no fault of theirs, are color-blind.

72

Paint and Moisturizer
by
Letisia Cruz
Most of me was there, but obviously I don’t remember
being born. I do know for sure I was born with tattoos.
My mother denies it to the death, but her memories are
compromised by all the drugs she was on. Not that she
ever willingly took any drugs; my mother’s never been
into any of that. But who knows what sorts of drugs they
gave women in labor back in the 70’s. I mean, Gerald
Ford was president. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
The thing with tattoos is that they’re like beauty
marks. They’re not visible right away, but they’re there.
It’s true. Just look at any baby. Beauty marks aren’t
visible ’til the kid starts growing. Tattoos are the same,
except they take longer to become visible ’cause they’re
bigger and take longer to form. It’s scientific, but I’m not
going to get into any of that.
My first tattoo became visible the year Mr. Fernandez
died. He’d been a good, quiet neighbor, and I sometimes
wondered if my mother missed him. My mother had
clearly been in denial about my tattoos since my birth
and went into shock when she walked into the bathroom
that September and found me standing naked in front of
the mirror admiring my newly decorated hip. She got so
pale I nearly called an ambulance, but then she sat and
started her breathing the way women do when they’re in
labor, even though she wasn’t in labor, and I guess the
exaggerated gulps of air somehow helped her regain
control of her face and brain.
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I started to explain that it wasn’t my fault and that I
was born this way and that I was sorry for missing school
even though I wasn’t really, because, coincidentally, I’d
missed school the day my first tattoo appeared. Then she
started saying something about “new laser procedures”
as if my tattoo were some kind of defect that I should
have medically removed, and I got real upset and started
crying ’cause I was afraid she might try to take it from
me. She seemed genuinely shocked by my reaction, as if
she’d expected me to be relieved at the thought of losing
the one thing I’d wanted most my whole life.
We had dinner together in front of the TV that night,
and for the first time ever, my mother missed work. She
had two jobs; she worked at a bodega by day and at an
embroidery factory by night. The skin on her hands and
feet was dry and brittle and cracked. She had long, black
hair that she always kept in a ponytail and soft, black
eyes that she never painted. That night, we stayed up
late, watching TV and drinking coffee. I covered her
hands and feet in every kind of lotion and made her wear
my long soccer-socks.
If it’s true that everybody has a word, my mother’s
word was survive. She was a woman who’d been dealt
rough hands, and yet she consistently plowed through
life with the strength of a defiant bulldozer. But even
after three cups of coffee, she fell asleep on the couch
like that, with her hands and feet very moisturized and
my striped soccer-socks pulled up to her knees. Then I
turned the TV off and re-checked the bolt on the door
and covered my sore hip in lotion and lay down next to
her and fell asleep, too.

74

Welcome Back Jack
by
Lynn Kennison

As Jack turned down his suburban street, making his way
back to his humble abode—a small pale yellow tracthouse in a quiet neighborhood full of other pallid tracthouses—a horn sounded as an oncoming car blazed by
him, forcing him off of the road. In his younger days, he
wouldn’t have stood for that; he would have chased after
them, but now he didn’t waste time with such nonsense.
He just wanted to get home. He had been gone for too
long.
Jack tiptoed up the backstairs and peered quietly
through his living-room window. There she was, Sadie—
the one woman he could not live without. She sat in her
chair quietly watching television in her light blue
nightgown. She came into his life a little over four years
ago and nothing had been the same since. Before Sadie,
Jack felt the world turning against him; at every corner
and crossroads he came to, animosity and hostility ruled.
And just when the evils of the world were about to
consume him entirely, he met Sadie. She gave him a
chance when nobody else would. She saw something in
him worth saving and showed Jack a different kind of life,
one that taught him to trust and love again—one that he
could be proud of now.
Though he loved her so, he knew his return home
would not be a joyous one. She wasn’t fond of his allnighters, but Jack simply couldn’t help himself, he had
always been a bit of a free spirit. But even so, he would
75

always come back to her, always, because there was
nobody else for him. If she could only see herself though
his eyes, she needn’t worry. Maybe it was a good sign the
porch light was left on—an even better one that she had
waited up.
Sadie noticed Jack peering through the window. She
gave him a stern look, but he begged her to come to the
door. She got up and walked over, boards creaking
beneath each step. She didn’t say much as the door
squeaked opened, and Jack’s gaze lowered as he crossed
the threshold and directly walked over to his orange
plastic bowl lying next to the fridge. There was a small
brown biscuit left on top of his kibble, and Jack’s tail
wagged knowing Sadie loved him still.

76

Cyborg Music
by
Mary Cafferty

My mother was a field, stretching strong across the
rolling hills of my imagination, and life sprang from her as
water from the wellâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;up and up and up, golden and clear
at the same time. Water sweet and strong. Rain in
summer. She was. She was.
Her eyes were blue, and they were looking at me
from across the worn surface of the kitchen table, planed
smooth by the strong sandstorms of many childhoods.
I was five years old.
My motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blue eyes held me in my seat saying, I
love you. I love you.
***
My mother was a house, and I lived in her because she
lived in me creating comfortable places for herself buried
deep in my own rich red fiber, spaces with carpets and
mint-colored curtains. She would open up the windows
sometimes to let a fresh, deep breath in. And then I
would feel new again.
My mother wore her glasses on the very tip of her
nose, which was angular and pointed even though my
own was not. And she would sit on the floor of the small
living room with her books and her small machines,
writing a book I would never bring myself to read.

77

Thank you, thank you, I would think while I watched,
feeling the windows opening up to let air into my lungs,
but they were words I would never say.
***
My mother was a tree growing deep into the soil of a
garden that was me, cultivating plants that would grow
into people that would sink their long, porous roots deep
underneath my skin, and only few would bear fruit.
Underneath my skin, my life looks so much different
than it does from the outside.
Fourteen years old, and it was summertime, and my
mother watched me from the window. The sun hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
quite set, and the rain came, drenching the air with
water and a light that looked like it had been dusted with
powdered gold. And my mother watched me from the
window with one long palm pressed against the cold
glass, a halo of condensation growing where the fingers
made contact with the glass.
I see you, her eyes said to me from where she stood
inside the house.
I miss you, I answered back, but in a manner she
could never decipher.
***
My mother was a rock standing silently in the stream
that was my life, and I flowed around her in finely
colored strands, paint poured from the bucket of my
constantly shifting consciousness.
Her hands were long and nimble.
I was nineteen.

78

My mother’s hands were long and nimble, and she
could have played piano. She could have. I imagine it,
sometimes, when I think about her, wishing, wishing,
WISHING she had chosen that life instead, because the
music could have been so deep and clear, and I can hear
it, and I wish I could bottle up that sound even though it
never existed.
I was nineteen, and my mother’s machines scared me
more than her books did. Her hands were nimble, and
they created cyborg music.
***
My mother was a bird flying low over a field of
sunflowers, and the sunflowers were me, a collection of
mistakes growing into something that, when viewed
from above, was beautiful.
My mother used to play with my hair, separating
strands out with two lily-white fingers and turning out
small, fine braids. When she was done, I would go into
my room and close the door and undo them, one by one,
crying in front of the mirror.
And then I was older, and I didn’t let my mother
touch me anymore.
She would look at me across the weather-worn table
which I clung to, driftwood from the shipwreck, and
those blue eyes asked: why, why?
My own answer echoed back to her over the
emptiness between us, where an entire ocean now
seemed to surge:
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.

79

***
My mother was a straight, slim arrow arcing in its bright
red trajectory over my head until it disappeared
somewhere up in the universe, swallowed by stars.
My mother was a scientist, and this is true.
She stared with big blue eyes into the terminal, and it
reflected blue back onto her face. She looked like a
vessel which had my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shape but was filled with
water and broken things.
My mother was a vessel draining out and draining out
and...
I watched her from across the doorway, feeling all of
the windows inside me closing one by one, no longer
ruffling mint-colored curtains, and I tried and I tried to
breathe deeply, but there were raw places where I
couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t force the oxygen to go.
And she never turned to stare, the way I always
feared she might, eyes blank but with sharp glass edges
that would cut me and force me from the room. She just
stared and stared straight ahead, emptying out onto the
floor, which was covered in things half-made and
abandoned, and bits of fraying wire.
***
My mother was a weapon, and in the end, the only
damage she inflicted was upon herself, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s half
true.
***

80

My mother is a box glowing blue, now, and we keep her
in the corner where she watches, sometimes, when she
is not unplugged.
Her bright blue glow pulses softly over the living
room and spills out the window onto the street at night.
My mother was a lake.
My mother was a vessel.
My mother was.
She was.
She was.

81

A Picture of Hope
by
Mel Fawcett

With a second glass of wine in my hand, I wandered
round the crowded gallery and feigned interest in David’s
brightly-colored paintings. I didn’t like them—I never
had. On most of the canvases were painted huge letters,
in silver or gold, spelling words like Love, Peace, and War.
To me they were meaningless; pleasant to look at, but
nothing more. My own paintings were much deeper and
darker, born out of suffering and experience. Once my
work adorned the walls of a gallery, people would see
what real painting was about.
“Malcolm! You made it.”
I turned to see David grinning at me. He was wearing
a very suave silver-grey suit.
“We’d almost given up on you.”
“I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. You’re the
only famous person I know.”
David laughed.
“I’m hardly that.”
“You’re too modest. I’m surprised you still talk to
unknown daubers like me. Not that I’ll be unknown for
much longer.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Malcolm. You don’t
know how lucky you are, not having to go through all the
crap of preparing for shows and the time-wasting publicrelations bit. I’m serious; it’s not as much fun as it looks.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”

82

A man in a white suit approached us. He had a bottle
of red wine in his hand.
“David, there you are. I need you.”
David smiled at the newcomer.
“Paul. I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine—
Malcolm Barnes. Malcolm, this is Paul Maynard-Smith.
It’s his gallery.”
Maynard-Smith refilled my glass.
“And what do you do, Malcolm?” he asked, glancing
at my clothes—still slightly damp from being caught in
the rain.
“I paint,” I said,
“Paul, don’t!” David said, suppressing a laugh.
“Don’t what?” Maynard-Smith said, doing the same.
I was feeling somewhat left out of the joke.
“You were about to ask Malcolm whether he painted
pictures or houses.”
“I was not!” Maynard-Smith said, laughing.
“You must excuse his sense of humor, Malcolm; no
one thinks he’s funny.”
And yet they were both laughing.
“So, who’re you with, Malcolm?” Maynard-Smith
asked after a moment.
“I came on my own.”
“No.” Maynard-Smith smiled as though indulging a
half-wit. “I mean what dealer are you with?”
“Oh, I’m not with anyone at the moment. But I’ve got
some slides of my work with me, if you’d like to see
them,” I said, taking out the wallet of slides wrapped in
clingfilm.
“You have to admire the man’s style,” David said.
“Yes, quite. Well, considering you’re a friend of my
favorite artist,” he was looking at David, “why not drop

83

them into the office before you go. Now, David, I really
must introduce you to someone.”
And they walked away. I put the slides back in my
pocket and hoped that no one noticed my heightened
color. Then I emptied my glass and went for a refill.
That’s when I saw Patricia looking at me; she was shaking
her head.
“That’s so typical of you, Malcolm, coming in your old
clothes. Anyone would think you were still a student. You
might at least have made an effort.”
I didn’t tell her I was wearing my best jacket and
trousers; the bitch probably knew. I was glad I’d had a
few drinks.
“I knew there would be no competing with David,
Patricia, so I didn’t even try.”
“He does look good, doesn’t he? Success agrees with
him. How is it going for you in…where are you living
now?”
“Woking.”
“Oh, yes. I think we passed through there once on the
way to the coast.”
I’d never liked Patricia, and I was relieved when David
reappeared.
“Hey, guess what!” he said.
“What?” Patricia said.
“You see that painting there?” he said, indicating one
just behind us. It was an unprimed canvas with large pink
letters spelling Hope. “Tate Modern wants it.”
“What! Oh, that’s fabulous, David.”
“How much?” I asked.
David frowned: “Does that matter?”
“Of course it does.”
“It’s not the most important thing, though, is it?”
“Isn’t it?”
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“All right, if you must know, it’s twenty grand.”
“Twenty grand! And that’s not important?”
“Come on, Malcolm,” Patricia said, “surely you can
appreciate the thrill of getting something into the Tate?”
“One basement storeroom’s the same as another to
me,” I said.
“Exactly,” David smiled.
“Why d’you say that?” Patricia asked. “Are you
implying that they wouldn’t show it?”
“I live in hope,” I said with a smile.
“What d’you mean?”
“For Christ’s sake, woman, look around you.”
I indicated what I meant with a wide sweep of my
arm. But the action was more vigorous than intended,
and the wine in my glass went flying over the wall and
onto the Tate’s latest acquisition. The wine trickled down
the unprimed canvas, leaving a trail of red.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Patricia shouted.
I turned to David.
“David, I’m—”
“Don’t say anything. Just get out of my sight.”
“Ah, come on, it was an accident.”
“Accident, my arse!” Patricia shouted.
Maynard-Smith appeared.
“What’s happening? Oh my God, who did that? Get
some tissues, someone. Don’t just stand there, for
Christ’s sake—we’ve got to save it!”
I felt as though I ought to be doing something, but
everyone else seemed to be doing it first. I moved over
to the door to keep out of the way. Maynard-Smith was
flicking a handkerchief at the stained canvas. Patricia was
telling another woman what had happened. David was
looking distraught.

85

I stepped outside for some fresh air. And once out
there, I realized there was nothing to go back for. I
walked towards the bus stop. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother me that it
was still raining. It was nice not to have to worry about
such things.

86

Vampire Poetics
by
Joe Amaral

When a red rose perishes it
dyes the horizon pink
before succumbing to eveningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
dusky underground desiccation
Lifeless, pale as our soulless skin
We worship this steel sky, a blade
severing the sun from day
Amongst shadows we awaken
lurking with dark hunger
Carotid pulsing cacophony
Unlike protective cones closing tautly
to shelter their seedlings from cold,
humans dew-sweat their fears
Attracting beautiful black monsters
who make ballerinas appear stiff
A rustle of wind-driven leaves
forebodes our sylphlike approach
into the blood fire of sunset as we
engorge upon lovely arterial flavors
Feasting upon the creatures of light

87

Not a Raging Bull
by
Michael Davidson (herocious)

I pull on the two legs sticking out of her private parts. I
pull as hard as I can until two more legs show and a calf
falls to the earth. I pet the calf. He probably thinks I’m his
mom. But that’s what I want.
I make sure my calf gets properly fed on his first day,
and I pet him more the whole time while he eats. By
nighttime, I pull two mangos off our tree and bring them
home for dinner. My mom has boiled yucca and rice for
me. She doesn’t care for nothing about the news of the
calf. Only I’m aware of the great thing that’s about to
happen to my life.
The calf eats more and grows stronger. I give it what
feels like all the love in my ten-year-old body. I rest my
head near its neck and take naps. When I bathe in the
river that runs close to my house, I also wash the calf.
Then I get on its back like I would a horse and ride it
around in the field until we’re dry and dizzy from the sun.
Every night, I think of a name to give my calf. Because
he’s black with a white star on his head and down his
nose, in the end I name him Diamante.
One morning, Diamante is a bull who still thinks I’m
his mom. When he’s out in the fields eating grass and
sees me, he always runs to where I am and nudges me
with his nose and rubs against me and purrs.
Diamante is the biggest bull in this part of Cuba.

88

I tie a lasso around his neck, put a rope through his
nose, and ride him like it’s the most natural thing in the
world. I use a blanket for a saddle.
I start to ride him around to do my daily errands.
When people see me coming, they point at me and
scream that I’m going to get killed, but they don’t know
Diamante is my son, not a raging bull.
Every sunset, I take him by the river close to my
house, and we run fast through the field. For long
stretches, I open my mouth to feel the rush of air. Then I
push everything out with a mighty scream. To be honest,
riding him makes my butt raw. I even start to walk funny.
To remember everything, my uncle the photographer
takes a picture of me sitting on Diamante right before I
head into town. Even though I’m healthy and shirtless
and on top of my bull, something inside my body knows
this picture will make me sad when I’m older and
confused.

89

Wake Me at Five
by
Myra King

It’s hard working on a production line. Mindless stuff.
When the same object repeats itself in front of you ad
nauseam, you start thinking, why did I go to school at all?
I’d even got to tertiary level, but my mates and their
hotrods and independent living made any long-term
college dreams seem as distant and undesirable as
nightmares.
My wife, Tanya, worked on a production line at a
potato chip factory. Not the crispy-packet sort, but the
dinner table type, you know—for workers feeding their
kids on a budget. Meat and one veg, sausage and chips—
cheap enough if you don’t count the health cost.
She started in the days before normal working hours
and noise control were in the vocabulary, never mind
understood. You were bloody soft if you wanted to wear
earmuffs. The men at her factory would snigger at the
mention of that word, “earmuffs,” and make the kind of
crude jokes associated with blue-collar workers. That sort
of class. No class.
Not that I can talk. I couldn’t hack it on the
production line and got into construction, driving the
commercial cement mixers. Big contracts and small,
backyard and factory—the size of the job determined the
size of the load. Or how many of them.
Tanya also worked shifts, graveyard mostly, as there
was more money in it, and a lack of education breeds the
kind of desperation that makes you unfazed about the
90

toll it takes. What knell it rings for marriage and body.
She was always tired. Always complaining she didn’t get
enough sleep. And I know I wasn’t considerate enough
about how hard she worked. But she knew I loved her,
didn’t she? Then why did she leave? I’ve asked myself
that so many times.
She was always on time. It was a compulsion. She
said to me once, “Brady, it shows lack of respect if you’re
late for an appointment. Shows you don’t care about the
other person’s time. That somehow your time is more
important than theirs.” She was like that. Considerate.
Especially of others.
Punctuality was a huge deal to Tanya. Our daughters
must have picked up on that too, both born on the day of
their predicted births. No maternal leave, but Tanya’s
mum came down from up north and stayed until the
babies slept nights, and then she disappeared back home
to die a year later, when we had no funds or ability to
take any more time off work for her funeral.
It got harder as the girls grew older, but we made
sure they didn’t go without, although they say different
now, like I guess most grown-up children do. Not enough
of our own time spent with them. Missed concerts and
sports days, but I always made the twilight ones.
Tanya never did, she often worked double shifts, and
sometimes she wouldn’t come home for two days
running, taking lunches with her and buying her dinners
at the factory canteen. Some husbands may have been
suspicious, but I trusted her. And then there was always
the extra money, the double pay-packet at the end of the
fortnight, like some sort of proof.
***

91

I’ve taken up a hobby in my early retirement, working
with wood. Lighter than concrete. With our daughters
raised and our house paid for, it’s not too bad living on
my super, and with it being topped up by the sickness
benefit, I’ve even managed to buy a lathe and some
other tools I need.
***
I don’t blame Tanya for my depression. It wasn’t her
fault, not directly.
“Wake me at five,” she had said. It was one of those
days she’d come home between the shifts. She’d had an
early dinner and put mine in the oven. I started at four in
the morning, so I was always home by three o’clock in
the afternoon, unless we had a really big project on, like
putting down the floor for a factory.
I lay next to her on the bed and stretched out. I could
hear her breathing, and I must have gone to dreamland,
because it seemed no time at all and then something
disturbed me. Maybe my internal clock, although now
I’m not so sure. I started up and saw the bedside clock
was five to five. It had been ten to four last time I’d
looked.
I waited and watched the clock like a worker wanting
to leave. I remember feeling so relaxed thinking that now
I wouldn’t miss Tanya’s deadline. I shudder at that
memory. When it was time, I shook her, but she gave no
response, I felt like I was in a dream—a doze where
pictures flash through your mind but no one moves. I
touched her again, my fingers curling around her bare
arm. It was damp and clammy like someone’s who had
just got out of the shower. Then I was awake, screaming
her name, shaking her, watching for her eyes to open,
92

knowing, but not knowing how I knew, that they never
would again.
The next few hours were a blur of ambulance and
paramedics. Blue and red and things I’d never known
happened, like that they couldn’t take Tanya to the
hospital, that I needed an undertaker. “I” now, not “we.”
That it had been a massive heart attack. That probably—
and there is the word which haunts me still, probably—I
could have done nothing for her, that it had been too
late for CPR.
“Wake me at five,” Tanya had said. And I knew to be
punctual, not a minute later. She would have worked it
out to the last second, how to be back at work on time
for her second shift. And with her so tired after standing
on her feet all day, I knew not to wake her a minute
sooner. God knew she needed the sleep.

93

The Dove Man
by
Nancy Stohlman

“Me, I’ve got my whole funeral planned out,” he says,
leading me across the yard. “First of all, I’m going to tell
the morgue to show up half an hour late because
everyone is late for funerals anyway. Then I want them
to run, not walk, but run with my casket down the aisle,
wearing clean white tennis shoes, like they’re really late.
And the whole time they’re running, I want them to be
playing Queen—‘Another One Bites the Dust.’”
I can already hear the rustling from halfway across
the yard as we approach what looks like a giant white
barn. When he opens the door, I suck in my breath—
shelf upon shelf upon shelf of doves. The floor is open,
just covered with wire mesh, the walls lightly spattered
with tan and green dove shit. The birds softly coo and
cock their heads.
“And then, when they open my casket, I’m going to
be holding a fork. You know why?” I shake my head.
“Because you always save your fork for dessert. And
where I’m going, I’m saving the best for last. I can hardly
wait.”
There must be at least three hundred doves. He has
them divided by males, females, babies born this year,
breeders, retired, and a cage of rescued birds including
some pigeons and some fantailed doves.
“You see, I’m always releasing doves for funerals.
Weddings and funerals, that’s mostly what I do. And you
can tell the people who have faith and who don’t by the
94

way they grieve. The ones with faith, well, they just know
they’re going to a better place. That’s why when you
leave my funeral you’re not going to know if you were at
a party or a funeral.”
The doves are identical, sleek fatted bird after white,
sleek, fatted bird. Even the dove shit seems, somehow,
inoffensive. Simple.
“Yeah, I lose a few each year. But it’s usually to
predators. I mean, if you’re a hawk around a dove
release, it’s like dinner time! That’s why they’re
supposed to fly together. But they don’t usually get lost.
I’ve taken these birds out as far as two hundred miles
away and released ‘em, and they all show back up. Every
single dove flies two hundred miles directly back to their
house here. Sure, I got to train them to do that. I take
them out slowly at first, maybe 40 miles. Then if they
make it back, I’ll take them out a little further. If one of
them takes too long, I put them in this cage. This is the
quarantine cage. They stay in here for a month or so, and
then I take them back out.”
In this cage all the bad doves look at me blankly, like
wall after wall of inbred children, watching with curiosity
something from the outer world.
“One time, I was doing a release, and all the birds
were all flying in a group like they do, doing their show,
and then they turned to start heading for home, and
then this one bird just starts hightailing it south like
someone lit a fire under her butt or something. And I’m
thinking, you stupid bird, you’re going the wrong way!
And she didn’t come back that night, and I figured, oh,
that’s it, something got her. But then I got a phone call
the next day, and a woman said, ‘Tom, I think I might
have one of your birds.’ Now mind you, my phone
number’s on the bird’s ankle, see.” He spins a little
95

bracelet around the tiny wisp of a dove ankle. “Which
means the bird had to let her get the number off of it,
which is a miracle in itself, but then how did she know
my name? So I say, yes, it’s probably one of my birds, but
how did you know my name? Because you did my
husband’s funeral last week, she says. Can you believe
that bird flew seventy-five miles south and landed on her
porch? He stayed all night on the porch, and he was still
there in the morning too, and she had breakfast and the
bird stayed, and then she finally said, well, I have to go to
work now, and the bird took off and came home. She
said she just had to call to say thank you for letting her
have breakfast with her husband one last time.
“I do a lot of funerals,” he says again, taking off his
NRA hat and rubbing his head. “I’m around grief all the
time. But the Lord speaks to me. I know there’s more
waiting for me up there. Man,” he says, eyes welling up,
“I’m not afraid of death anymore. In fact, I can’t wait.”
As we’re getting ready to leave he says, “Hey, stand
right there. Now get ready!” And then he releases three
hundred doves, and they soar, flying together like
schools of white feathers against a bright blue January
sky.

96

First and Last Day Out of the Asylum
by
Natalie McNabb

I sing along with Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”
while cutting across traffic to take a left in this Jeep
someone left idling for me in front of that AM/PM. I pass
DO NOT ENTER in flashing neon, in red letters on whitepainted metal too, and as “Mrs. Robinson” fades, I buckle
my seatbelt and stomp on the gas because there are
people on this overcast Sunday freeway who must be
shown how to live.
Before a new song even begins, I crank up the stereo,
and when Paul Simon plucks that first chord in “The
Sound of Silence”—D-minor, so drawn and cold—I’m
grateful to the owner of this Jeep for his taste in both
vehicles and music. I croon on, stroke mockery with my
tongue—C-major—along with Paul and Art.
I enter the freeway and find myself hurtling toward
two oncoming vehicles: a truck and a rusty minivan. I aim
for the minivan, singing, staring it down. You see, it’s not
envy, greed, or pride that casts the ugliest curse upon
man, not even lust or anger, but sloth, apathy born of
world-weariness. The driver of the minivan hasn’t
reacted, probably hasn’t even seen me. Like my last
therapist who could neither see nor hear for having seen
and heard so much. The driver snaps out of his daze and
zigzags off into the concrete median, his apathy lifted
and sin as white as snow.
A sedan slows and veers, only slightly though, the
driver perhaps assuming I’ll turn away. I re-aim for their
97

grill. As they peel away toward the ditch I find the
driver’s eyes, so alert and protective of the child in her
back seat. My front fender swipes the rear panel, strips
the bumper from her car. Someone should’ve done that
for you, Mother. We were to be neither seen—“Stop
it!”—nor heard—“Shut up!”—and you pressed us down—
“Sit still!”—and down to be sure of it. We either
acquiesced or we rebelled and were forced, and then
sloth crept in upon us. I croon on with Paul and Art.
Another of the imprisoned thousands, millions even,
shows themselves in a sports car brandishing headlights
and horn. I honk and flash back, singing louder as the
driver and I throw gestures at one another out our
windows. But, perhaps there’s no sloth here. Though we
both brake and turn sharply, we choose the same
direction and collide.
Everything lurches, and I’m jerked sideways. My
chest is compressed, shudders as the Jeep pitches,
tumbles, and rocks upside down, my hip, ribs and
shoulder straining against the seatbelt as I sway back and
forth, back and forth. And, yet, it seems as if everything
has been turned right, as if I’m cradled now in some
inverse world with pavement and road stripes above, the
sky beneath, Simon and Garfunkel singing on and on. I
sing “The Sounds of Silence” with them while something
runs up my neck, trickles over my jaw, bathes my vision
in red.
Sirens grow, drowning out the stereo as they
approach. When the sirens are at last silent and only
flashing red and white light remains, I know I’ll be pulled
from here soon.
A female paramedic is unable to open the door at
first, but manages. She yells over Simon and Garfunkel,

98

over my own singing, “We’ll get you out! Where’s your
pain, sir?”
I have to stop singing to tell her, “My chest.”
She can’t hear me over the stereo, reaches past and
hits the knob to turn it off. “Where’s your pain?”
“Chest.”
She has a male paramedic help her brace me against
the seat to keep me from dropping to the roof when she
undoes my seatbelt. I wipe at the blood on my face as
they untangle me from the belt, pull me out, and put me
on a gurney. She covers me in a blanket, wraps the fabric
about my feet, tucks it over my shoulders. She asks,
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Ehyeh.”
“Sir?”
“Ehyeh. It means I Am.”
“It means you’re what, sir?”
I shake my head. “Ehyeh means I Am.”
She looks at me for a bit. “Is it your first or last name,
sir?”
“First.” I add, “And last.” She won’t understand; she’s
asleep like the others.
“You’re in shock, I think, sir,” she says.
The male paramedic tells me, “Sit tight,” and turns,
whispers to her, “More to this one’s story I’ll bet.”
I see how she won’t look at me anymore. I might save
her though. My hand shoots out from under the blanket,
grabs her wrist. “Wake up. Please wake up,” I say, but
can’t hold on and must let her go.
The male paramedic places two fingers on my wrist.
I tell him, “It means I Am.”
He says, “Yes, okay,” and tells me, “Sit tight,” again,
but both of their faces are pulling away.

99

The sky is lifting too, and I whisper, “I Am,” and
whisper again, “I Am,” but they have drawn the blanket
up, have covered my face before I have even begun to
tell them about this sky that’s shot with silver blooming
and blooming into the brightest whites, before I have
begun to sing to them of the whispers here that upend
all apathy and silence.

100

The Work of Crows
by
Rod Peckman

During outbreaks of the Black Death,
medical doctors wore helmets reminiscent
of crow heads.
—In the Company of Crows and Ravens
A shorthand for loss and a grim settling.
We run fingers along closed mouths and find
a secret Braille on peeling lips. Shade marks
our days, sundials recording absence now
under evergreen boughs heavy with still
black wings. When somebody asks, we can’t give
them a time. I stood under a dark sky, stars
now lost in movement behind a bruising
outline of crows leaving their nests, flying
as one mass in silence. Wings brushed my face
in the rise. Nothing was laid open
as this night, scattered so, and patched together
with gauze hiding cracks spread like purple veins.
Open and soft as the crease behind knees.
One cure demands the other in return.
One cure for the other in each extreme
of broken skin. Run your tongue across the breaks—
leave letters of our secret alphabet.
Gather consonants and vowels. I challenge
you to make even one single goddamned
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word for this. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to lose hours
for marking days in our captivity.
Save yourself with something as burnished
as anger. Maybe you already have,
wet boughs cracking the dark egg of this night,
driving crows from nests rising in silence
hiding the stars and fanning your flame.
If green limbs smoke, sap still spits at the breaks,
if the thick branches still glow: good peace to you.
If settled to a dull gray ash, crows are
down for the night: then simply all good peace.

102

Severance
by
Natalie McNabb

cut v. To penetrate or strike an opening in. To separate
into parts with a sharp device. n. A wound made by a
sharp edge. A part cut from a main body.
***
Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scissors, the manmade godsend that helps me
keep her dusty curtains distant. I stretch left from atop
the stepladder and slip the lower jaw of the scissors
through the nearest fabric loop securing curtain to brass
rod. I snip the first loop; the curtains sag. I snip the
second; they sag a little more. I continue cutting and
cutting, making my way along the rod, Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curtains
sagging and slumping, forming hills around my
stepladder, shrugging dust off in puffs. I rub my eyes with
the back of my wrist, cut the last loop and the curtains
drop, a pale cloud wafting upward. A ghost caught in the
sunlight burning through the front window. I sneeze. I
always do in bright sun, and I wonder at this crossing of
pathways in my brain, at this intersection of primordial
reflexes, the reaction of my eye to bright light and the
sneezing reflex. A relic of evolution. An unexplainable
ghost.
Dust powders the window glass, settles on the
wooden sill, and dust clings to gauzy webs pressed
against the glass as if they have been trying to get
outside from in since spun. How many spinners must
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they have seen. How many windowsill tenants must have
come and gone, come and gone, spinning out lives,
leaving webs to billow in window and vent drafts.
Billowing sails that never traveled, never took their
creators anywhere.
The dust has settled upon Mother’s once-pale, now
dark green, carpet. The color’s all the rage, you said. I
hadn’t believed you. I couldn’t. Not carpet the color of
the mashed garden peas you fed to Sheila one tiny
spoonful at a time.
***
mother v. To birth or produce. To create. n. The
biological female parent of offspring. An origin.
***
Sixty-two years, and this is it? All around, Mother, are
your monuments, evidence that you existed. But, I
cannot yet consider the things in your piles, cupboards,
closets, and drawers. So, I stand with my back to them
all, with your curtains snipped and fallen to the floor. The
spinning spiders have moved on, and so many flies just
lie there now cluttering your sill and aluminum window
track. So many spinning spiders, once cutting lace webs
in sunlight, their yet-undusty webs disappearing each
time the sun crossed them just so.
Laurie and Sheila could not come, not today. Not
ever, I think. But, Someone’s moving into the place in a
week! the agent said, and so here I sit, your eldest, crosslegged on canned-pea-colored carpet with your scissors
and dust, trying to swallow all of this one tiny spoonful at
a time. I rub my fingers across my brow and squeeze the
104

bridge of my nose. The dust has also settled in a fine,
nearly imperceptible layer upon me. My hands have your
dust, and my forearms. I sneeze again and wonder if I
could blend into the carpet were I to lie upon it long
enough, unmoving like you are now.
***
How to Make Paper Dolls: First, fold your piece of paper,
just so, into an accordion. Then, cut the head, neck, and
shoulders out, but leave the hands connected at the folds.
Cut out the torso, skirt, and legs next, but leave the feet
connected at the folds, too. Open your paper up, et voila!
You have a string of dolls.
***
I pull the felled curtain toward me and cut an eight-anda-half-by-eleven-inch swatch from it. I fold it into an
accordion, just so. I cut out our heads, necks, and
shoulders first, leaving our hands connected at the folds.
Like you taught me, Mother. Then, I cut our torsos, skirts,
and legs, leaving our feet connected at the folds, too. I
place the scissors beside me and open my swatch,
revealing our connected silhouettes. Left to right: Laurie,
Sheila, you, and me. The four of us strung together,
draped across my palms.
***
cut v. To shape by penetrating. To pass through. n. A
passage made by digging or probing. A transition from
one scene to another.

105

***
I brush the dust from my hands and squint against the
sunlight to watch a long-jawed orb weaver on the other
side of the window extend its long copper forelegs and
gather lengths of previously spun thread. Perhaps it is a
lucky one that made it outside from in. The spider drops
quickly upon new thread, stopping, dropping and
stopping again. No, it’s not the sunlight that tints this
spider’s thread an unusual golden hue. It is the thread
itself. The breeze tousles the dangling spider, pressing it
sideways, and the spider catches the aluminum window
casing, fixes its thread and, now free, climbs upward to
do it all again.
I pick up your scissors and slip the lower jaw beneath
Sheila’s fabric hand, the one grasping yours, and I snip. I
cut the fabric connection where your feet touch too.
Sheila and Laurie, still connected at their hands and feet,
fall to your green carpet. I slip the lower jaw of your
scissors beneath my fabric hand, the one grasping yours,
and I snip. I sever the fabric connection at our feet too,
and my doll falls, too. Yet, I still hold you, Mother, just so.

106

The Sleep Thief
by
Sandra Crook

Emily shifted restlessly in the bed, easing the cat gently
from her feet. It stirred in protest before settling back on
Emily’s feet again, and she sighed. The sound of gunfire,
explosive music, and the occasional scream drifted from
the sitting room across the hall. George was watching the
late film.
Not for the first time, she regretted being persuaded
to sell their three-bedroom house for this so-called
“sheltered housing,” a row of poorly soundproofed
single-story apartments, with one bedroom, a wet-room
specially designed for the elderly, and a tiny kitchen
which encouraged the production of nothing more
ambitious than toasted sandwiches.
“So much more suitable for you,” the kids had
enthused, gratefully pocketing the surplus cash
generated by the sale. “We won’t have to worry about
you falling down the stairs anymore.”
“And you won’t have to call round to see us half as
often,” thought Emily, shifting her aching legs again.
Their former home had a spare bedroom, to which
she would retreat on the nights when George stayed up
until the film ended—or until, as was usually the case
these days, he could no longer follow the plot. No spare
room now though.
The noise from the adjacent room ceased abruptly.
She felt the cat lift its head briefly. Within a few minutes,
the hum of the microwave reverberated through the thin
107

walls as George heated up his milk. Was it too much, she
wondered, to expect him to drink it whilst watching the
film?
The bedroom lights snapped on. She listened, eyes
closed, as he undressed, wheezing heavily with the
exertion. The bed dipped as he climbed in, rose as he
remembered his book on the dresser, and dipped again.
The sickly smell of hot milk permeated the room, and
her stomach lurched uneasily. The cat raised its head to
sniff the air, grumbled quietly, and settled down again.
George rustled the pages of his book intermittently
as he read. He blew heavily on his milk several times
before taking a cautious noisy sip, his teeth clinking
against the side of the mug. He gulped loudly and then
blew on the milk again before returning the mug to the
bedside table.
About another ten minutes yet, she estimated, trying
to think of something else. Why, she wondered, did he
bother to heat the milk up to boiling point if it was
necessary to blow it cool again?
He drained his cup with a noisy slurp and set it down
loudly, startling the cat. Emily thought she heard it sigh.
The bed rose again as George lumbered off to the
bathroom. The light snapped on, the cord flicking against
the wall as it always did if you released it immediately,
and the toilet seat thumped as it was raised. And then,
the exquisite tortureâ&#x20AC;Śthe wait.
She visualized him leaning against the bathroom wall,
waiting for nature to take its course. Minutes passed. Her
nerves screamed in anticipation, waiting for the
completion of the ritual so that sleep might finally claim
her. She was so close now. So tired.
Eventually she heard the thin trickle of urine hitting
the bowl, hesitant at first, then eventually settling down
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into a steady flow. Listening, quantifying, she guessed
she might not be disturbed again for three or four hours.
That would be enough for her.
The cord hit the wall again; the bed sank; bedclothes
were violently dragged across the bed as George built
himself a cocoon; and then darkness followed. For a
while, silence reigned. Tension began to flow from her
body, and the cat, having been dragged across the bed
with the quilt, stepped delicately back and burrowed
comfortably into her lap.
She let the darkness enfold her, and within minutes,
felt herself drifting into that pre-somnolent world of
nonsense, where the brain wanders free of the restraints
of reason.
George turned onto his back and began to snore,
softly at first, but within minutes, the snoring rose to a
shattering crescendo that sounded like he was choking to
death. If only, she thought, guiltily.
The cat stirred restlessly and dropped onto the floor.
She heard the scratch of its claws against the door as it
strolled away to the sitting room. She willed herself to
ignore the snoring, but it was hopeless. She tried
touching him gently with her foot, but although the noise
abated, it resumed almost immediately, if anything
slightly louder. It was now almost two hours since sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d
retired to bed.
Wearily, she swung her legs out of bed, dragged on
her dressing gown and felt her way through the darkness
to the sitting room. The cat was grooming itself on the
rug in front of the fire. She sat down on the settee and
began to sob quietly into her hands. This was the third
successive night without sleep, and she saw years of this
torment stretching before her. She ached with despair
and fatigue.
109

The cat stretched, yawning, and brushed reassuringly
against her bare legs. It padded quietly back towards the
bedroom, stopping at the doorway to give her a long,
level stare.
Emily lay down across the settee, pulling her robe
tightly round her body. As she drifted towards a deep,
dreamless sleep she heard Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s snoring gradually
becoming more muffled before finally stopping
altogether.
***
It was a quiet funeral, just the immediate family and a
few friends. Afterwards, Emily resisted all offers of
company, and returned gratefully to the empty
apartment, looking forward to an early night. It had been
a sad and trying day.
The cat was waiting for her, stretched out on
Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s side of the bed. It raised its head to watch her
enter, its gaze flicking to the glass of cold milk she was
carrying. She undressed, drank the milk quickly, visited
the bathroom and then got into bed. She started to drift
off almost immediately, thankful that she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t generally
snore.

110

Parmesan Dreams: An Allegory in which Umberto Eco
and the Rat King Converse about Various Things & in
which You Just Lost the Game
by
Travis King

In the time of year when Christmas approaches, night
comes early—a fact about which people complain often
but rats do not. Rats prefer darkness.
Somewhere in Italy, one Umberto Eco sits alone in his
study, quill in hand, candles burning to illuminate his
workspace. At least, that’s how this author imagines the
scene. Feel free to re-imagine the setting to suit your
own image of the man.
Without warning, a rat emerges from the wall.
Unconcerned that he might be interrupting the thought
processes of a literary genius, the rat scampers up Eco’s
escritoire and settles beside one of the candles.
Eco ceases his work, ponders the newcomer
momentarily, and then places his quill in the inkwell at
the corner of his escritoire. “Buon giorno, piccolo topo,”
says he—speaking Italian, of course, since it is his native
tongue and he is in his native land.
“Buon giorno, signore,” the rat replies, with a tip of
his crown. “Lo son oil re dei topi.”
“O, mi perdoni, Vostra Maestà,” says Eco. “Non mi
rendevo conto che. Mi scuso per la familiarità, con cui mi
sono rivolto a voi.”
“It’s quite alright,” says the rat—still speaking Italian,
of course, being an Italian rat in Italy, but translated here

111

for the convenience of an English-speaking audience. “I
am here for conversation; formality is not required.”
“Conversation?” Eco replies. “Have you a topic in
mind?”
“Not at all—er, I did not get your name, signore.” The
Rat King frowns.
“Umberto, Your Majesty.”
The Rat King waves his paw. “No ‘Your Majesty’
tonight, friend Umberto. Call me Ferruccio.”
“Ah,” says Eco, “a fine name. It imbues you with the
strength of iron…and, for better or worse, its
malleability. Or it would if names truly possessed power
and meaning—an assertion I heartily protest. Sometimes,
a rose is a woman; sometimes, a rose is a secret.
Sometimes, a rose is merely a rose; sometimes, it is
nothing at all.”
“You are cryptic, Signor Umberto,” says Ferruccio. “I
know nothing of roses—only garbage and cheese.”
Eco releases a hearty bellow. “Then shall we speak of
cheese? Parmagiano perhaps?”
The Rat King strokes his whiskers momentarily, then
says, “No, signore, there is enough talk of cheese within
the walls and sewers—enough to fuel nightly dreams of
parmagiano. I would like to hear more of your world.
Perhaps you might tell me what it is you do with that
feather.”
“But of course, friend Ferruccio. I write.”
“Write?” the rat wonders.
“Of course, rats would know very little of writing—
although I am sure you have seen words imprinted on
garbage.”
The Rat King gazes at the parchment lying before
him. “Yes,” he says, “I have seen such strange markings
before. I do not understand their meaning.” He frowns.
112

“It is such a pity,” says Eco, sharing in the rat’s
sadness, “that you cannot interpret them. But here, I will
reveal to you a secret.”
Ferruccio’s ears perk up on either side of his tiny
crown. “Oh, please do!” he chitters.
Eco leans in, whispers, “Words are not the things
they describe; they are but symbols, and symbols have
such meaning as you ascribe to them.”
Beside the flickering candle—a symbol for sure—the
Rat King strokes his whiskers once more. “Your thoughts
are profound, friend Umberto. They require much
consideration. Such meaning as I ascribe to them, you
say?”
“Indeed,” says Eco. “Symbols are not real. Words are
not real. Even things are not real.”
Had he sprung a trap full of cheesy goodness upon his
own tail, the Rat King would not have looked more
stunned. “Surely that cannot be. There was a great
storyteller among our kind, a prolific rat who composed
many tales to be passed down among our communities.
His name was Filippo Chedicchio, and he once said,
‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it,
doesn’t go away.’ Is there not, then, some external
reality that exists regardless of one’s perception?”
Eco smiles. “Yes, this too is true.”
The rat’s tail twitches. “How can both be true?”
“It is a paradox, is it not?”
There is a long stretch of silence.
Finally, the rat says, “It grows late, and you have
given me much to think about. I should like to know
more, but I must soon depart.”
“Before you do, friend Ferruccio, King of the Rats, will
you grant me one boon?”
“Of course, Signor Umberto, of course.”
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“Play tris with me.”
The rat emits an excited squee and nods his head
rapidly while clapping his paws. “Tris is my favorite
game!”
Eco grins, lays out a blank sheet of parchment, and
draws upon it a large octothorp.
“Your feather is too unwieldy for me to handle,” says
the King. “I am accustomed to making simple scratches in
the dirt.”
Eco offers to draw the Rat King’s symbols for him,
wherever his little paws indicate, and the battle of X’s
and O’s begins.
It takes but a few minutes, and in the end, the Rat
King has three X’s in a row.
“I have won!” King Ferruccio squeals. “Why do you
smile, my friend, as if you are the victor?”
“I will tell you one last secret before you go.” Again
the rat’s ears perk up. “The game,” says Eco, “is a symbol
of the world itself, its outcome a symbol of life. It is
subject to perception, and the way I perceive it, to win is
to lose, and to lose is to win.”
Another long stroke of the whiskers, some tapping of
the foot, and the Rat King says, “Truly, signore, you
confound me. I will go and ponder what we have
discussed, and someday I will come visit you again. He
stretches forth a tiny foreleg.
Eco nods, grasps the King’s paw, shakes it gently.
The rat leaves. Umberto resumes his writing, which
has both nothing to do with rats and tris and everything
to do with them as well.